Ok, i've tried growing rosemary from seed and its impossible, though all the others have popped up in a few weeks. So i've bought a couple of small 4 inch plants. I dont have a propagator so whats the easiest method of turning these plants into more rosemary plants?

You can take softwood cuttings from the soft shoots. You need to take a cutting of softwood (the bendy bit, not from a woody plant, which should be easy with new smaller plants), around 3 or 4 inches. Then strip the leaves off the bottom part, about a good two thirds to the top. Then plop the cutting in some compost mixed with a fair amount of vermiculite or sharp sand, as rosemary likes free draining soil that's not too rich.

Hopefully it should just take care of itself. I'm trialing some rosemary and lavender cuttings in this way, and so far, so good!

Good luck

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Cheers, if i need 3 inch cutting, i'll proberly best wait a bit. I dont want to use the entire plant as a cutting now do i

well you can try with smaller cuttings, it's just that they'll take longer to grow!

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Thanks again. Maybe i'll try cutting one bit off then and see what happens

Hi Claygarden

I took cuttings from rosemary, lavender and sage last year and really didn't know what I was doing. I just cut a couple of inches off the top of a spikey bit, stripped any leaves off as Oolalula said and shoved them in a pot of compost. I read somewhere that it's best to put cuttings around the edge of a pot til they take root and then transplant them to their own pots, so this is what I did and I now have lots of lovely new plants.

I took loads of cuttings - too many in fact, so I just stuck the spare rosemary in the ground and about half of them took.

Rosemary roots well from 'heal' cuttings. Just tear of a few branches with a heal and bung em in compost!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

whats a heal?

A "heel" is taking a cutting from the bit where a shoot joins the main stem/branch and including a bit of the old wood with it. Imagine the shoot is a leg, where it joins onto the old wood is the "heel", so you want a bit of that but not the whole foot! Does that make sense?

August is meant to be the ideal time for rosemary cuttings. Something to do with rising sap?

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Cheers greenstar. It sounds like actually using snadgers word then, to tear the shoot away from the main stem to as to take the stems "skin" away with the shoot. Is that right?

Two sheds, does rosemary know the time of year if its just grown inside? Would cuttings from these new young plants (4 or 5 inch high) from the garden centre just not work? I know i dont want to ravage the plant, but thought i may try one from the 2 plants i have.

I'm with Snadger on this. If all plants were as easy as rosemary what a simple life we would have! As I said before in a different line my spaniel (she of the permanent waggy tail) is always knocking bits of and I just plonk them in water outside and wait for requests. There is always someone for rosemary. If you are still having probs I can send you a nice big piece.

Ooooh, i would really appreciate that mrs dog. I didn't fancy destroying the young plants by pulling them apart if the cuttings didn't take by any chance. Can i post you a SAE?

Hi,
I managed to propogate some just by putting a few small stems in a glass of water on the kitchen windowsill!took of the bottom leaves so they did not rot!
Not sure if it was luck or not,but I got that from somewhere!
Regards
Mizjazzi

I have done the same as Mizjazzi but with the stuff in packets from Tesco.It now has a lovely root system and is due to be planted on.