A few years ago I wrote post about propagating rosemary from cuttings placed in water. That method for propagating rosemary is a viable method for sure but you probably will have more success if you take your rosemary cuttings and stick them in soil instead. Recently I posted a video on the YouTube channel that explains both propagation methods for rosemary. You can watch that below but here is a quick run down of how to propagate rosemary through cuttings.
An updated article with this information and more can be found here: A Complete Guide to Propagating and Growing Rosemary.
How to Propagate Rosemary from Cuttings
- Take six inch cuttings of healthy rosemary branches
- Strip the leaves from the lower half to 3/4 of the cutting.
- Use Rooting hormone on the cut end before sticking in the soil medium. Rooting hormone isn’t necessary but it will speed growth of roots and add some protection against fungal diseases.
- Place the cut end of the rosemary cutting in a rooting medium. In the video I used a peat/bark fines mix at 50% but many other mediums will work just as well like sand, sand/peat, or peat/perlite.
- Moisten the medium and put in a shady location to decrease water loss. Keep the rosemary cuttings watered daily or more often if the rooting medium dries out too quickly.
They should have some nice roots growing on your rosemary cuttings in about 4 weeks but if no roots form and the cuttings are still healthy give them more time.
Here is my post on rooting rosemary cuttings in water if you would like to try that method. I’ve covered it in the video above as well!
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