I use to grow Purple Possum and Panama Red when I lived in Florida. However, this is not the hardiness zone for them.
There was one that I considered growing from One Green World called, Incense, which is a hybrid that can supposedly handle the cold better. However, they have been out of stock for years. I have tried Maypops, but they do not interest me since the fruits are not that good compared to passion fruit and the vine takes up a lot of space where snakes are likely to hide (I speak from experience).
Lemon Balm does the trick since it is easy to grow, is safe for daily consumption, and requires no processing like Valerian root.
I have some hybrids similar related to Incense. They’re very good but I don’t think they’d work in zone 7, at least for fruit.
But also, it’s probably unsafe to consume any passiflora other than incarnata, hybrids included. Consuming most passionfruit species comes with a significant cyanide poisoning risk. P. incarnata is the only one that I’d be comfortable making a tea from, and even then only the flowers.
Fair enough. The suckering habit sure makes them hard to control.
I started a herb garden this year. I started by planting a lot of rosemary I grew from cuttings. Our neighbour loves building ugly walls made of these concrete blocks, so the rosemary can form a nice hedge so we don’t see this wall anymore.
Still a lot of bare soil, but I planted a lot of different kinds of thyme, and some lavender (both angustifolia and stoechas). All from cuttings, I am cheap.
The plant on the left is Satureja montana, winter savory.
Santolina rosmarinifolia and Santolina chamaecyparissus, and beneath are two different varieties of Salvia officinalis and a Salvia elegans (pineapple sage).
The appear to hate not being in the ground, either that or they hate something about potting mix, or both of the above. When we grew one in the ground it did great!
Maybe hates being root bound? I had some do just fine with absolutely not enough sun in a dirty old felt grow bag with 2 or 3 other herb roommates, but killed a gifted rosemary straight away in a nice pretty pot
I am growing hundreds of rosemary plants, and I found out that, even though they are very drought tolerant once established, they grow much better in clay soil here than in sandy soil.
That matches my experience as well with only a few rosemaries. My summers are as mild as it gets and my rosemaries still do better with fairly regular water 1-2x a month (my soils are sandy). They’re pretty tolerant of excess water or mulch even in winter when in-ground but are very finicky in pots, even with very good drainage (I’ve killed a couple of cuttings overnight months after rooting them).
Salem is the happiest variety I have after the winter here and seems more vigorous than Arp but our winters are far milder than Spokane, so I can’t speak to cold hardiness (freezes are uncommon and the ground never freezes more than an inch or two).
It could be, some herbs are very sensitive about what kind of container they are in, and I have not tried growing them in a grow bag. I do find that rooted rosemary cuttings tolerate being in a container better than seedlings, although they still don’t like it. If they like growing in grow bags then maybe they’d like growing in a clay pot as well. I know that on the Island of Malta some people do grow it in clay pots.
I do think that it might have something to do with the soil used too. @Peyote posted on this tread that Rosemary prefers clay soil, which makes sense, they are commonly grown in the Mediterranean after all, where clay soil is very common.
The aforementioned pretty pot was a glazed ceramic, though the death could have been attributed to underwatering, I never got a coroners report and it sure is easy to mess up watering on those tiny pots.
I’ve probably grown rosemary in unglazed terracotta at some point and it probably did ok fine not flourishing but fine.
In all cases my potting soil was likely pretty similar: some EB Stone potting mix (maybe organic, maybe not, maybe the Edna’s Best brand, but they’re all pretty similar) with some arbitrary amount of pumice mixed in. Not that I particularly believe in the EB brand, but it’s at like every single nursery around here
Not saying I believe that they especially hate being root bound —the idea just came to me—just noting my experiences and not even necessarily trying to draw conclusions here.
Also I should state for the record here that I live in Mediterranean climate portion of California
Added dill to 3 segments in the herb wall this weekend and started another 4 cell of it because why not. Planted some chives in the a couple of weeks ago too
Put some basil in pots this weekend but one was earmarked for my community garden plot (remembered when I picked the broccolini and all of a sudden there was a lot of empty space).
I think things are getting close to being ready for maintenance, which means I’ll invent some new projects soon. I’m already talking myself into more blueberries. Or maybe I need figs.
The one I put in crappy clay is my best as well. I had 2 in really good topsoil mix (excavated areas of my yard) and one died when I moved it and the other is tiny.
On German chamomile- I’m getting frustrated with this. It’s big and the blooms only seem to stay open for part of day and it’s blooming in waves. I don’t have time to collect tiny flowers everyday and the pollinators don’t seem to care much for it. It was planted as a companion plant with harvesting bonus, so if pollinators don’t like it and harvesting is a pain, it has no place in my small gardens.
i still have chamomile volunteers every year, i don’t plant on purpose but do let it have a space. i tend to rummage and wander around the garden ever day at some point so if i see the flowers on them i pick. it’s a lazy kind of harvest for me.
I’m going to make a good draining soil and put one of the rosemary into a clay pot, another in a fabric. then I’ll use regular potting soil on another in a 1 gallon i guess.
the last one I’ll plant up against the house foundation, under a locust tree. bad soil but the best protected from freezing i can do. and this winter I’ll try to cover it with pine needle and see if it takes out there.
Last spring, I started some Arp Rosemary plants from cuttings that rooted well and transplanted two of them to individual 4" plastic pots. After that, I mostly forgot about them but watered them whenever I noticed that the soil (Pro-Mix with fertilizer) looked dry. The soil dried out completely many times. They were then left out in our normally wet but unusually mild winter with no protection and no watering until recently. I see that they are now growing well but must be pretty rootbound by now. The point is that young Arp Rosemary plants tolerate many adverse conditions. However, these were not subjected to serious cold weather; so that seems to be the likeliest culprit for your rosemary problems.
I’ve brought them indoors over winter. I’ve put them in the greenhouse over winter. they’ve been kept at 40F plus for a winter. I’ve only tried them outside once.
i did one in good draining soil with pumice and orchid bark in it. one with regular potting soil. one with dirt, perlite, optosorb, and a handful of that biochar that was nearby.
The only other thing that I can think of is overwatering. Do you ever let the soil dry out completely? Constantly wet soil is more damaging than dry soil. I assume that all of the pots have adequate drainage holes. That bowl-shaped pot with the Arp in it has suspiciously damp-looking soil.
It probably depends on the site. My dad’s property about 25 miles west of Spokane is getting slowly consumed by oregano. Well, the sunny/grassy areas anyway. It spreads slowly but inexorably.
Replying to the main thread topic, I make sure to always have a pot of fresh thyme. Next highest priority is basil when it’s warm enough to grow it. This year I’m doing chives too.
Rosemary is really easy but I don’t use it much honestly.
That’s wild. Mullein is purely an invasive weed to me. What do you use it for? Just thinking about eating it makes me want to gag. Would be like sticking a piece of fuzzy cloth down your throat.
How cold hardy Rosemary is does vary a little based on variety, some varieties like the ‘arp rosemary’ that you mentioned, and like ‘Madeline Hill‘ rosemary are cold hardy down to about zone 6.
When we lived in Vermont, we had a rosemary survive several winters in the ground before the cold killed it, although I have no idea the variety, it was a plant that we bought at a store, then I knew nothing about rosemary, I just bought whatever the store had.
