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My rosemary has gone very yellow and brittle. There are the odd green leaves but not many. Is there any hope for it?! Any advice welcome please. It’s a few years old and was really healthy until recently.

Nope, sorry, but it is a goner.

It likes full sun and loose, sandy, well draining soil, that is allowed to dry out between waterings. Doesn't look like it had any of that.

I’m afraid I would have to agree with rainbowgardener. Even before yellowing, once rosemary’s leaves become dried and brittle, they have very hard time coming back.

We could talk about how it might have happened if you want — to avoid it happening again. If so, let us know how long you’ve had it and in what condition. Whether anything had changed recently.


Fortunately, rosemary is pretty widely available. If you live in an area where Rosemary can be kept outside year-round. This is a good time to get one so it could be acclimated and established/nurtured to a healthy state that would allow it to overwinter.

Welcome to the forum, Linzi.

You may have done what I did, when I first grew rosemary, which is what I read back then, and many still say now - that is let the pot dry out between waterings. As soon as that would happen, the plants never came back. They would begin yellowing, and slowly dry up, despite being watered again. That happened to me twice, after which I never allowed them to dry out, and they didn't die after that. However, I also discovered that rosemary becomes rootbound very fast. So I started keeping it in the garden, and, come winter, when it gets below 20°, I covered it, and when extremely low, I put a heater under the cover.

My outdoor rosemary died this year because the cover blew off, and I was physically unable to go out to re-cover it. So this season I ordered some from Richter's, the Hill Hardy variety, which they say may be more cold resistant than Arp variety, which I have tried, but it didn't have the same flavor as most rosemary. So I ordered 3 of these, and put one in a 4 gal fabric pot, which sounds like oversize for such a small plant, but, as I said, they got rootbound quickly, when I tried them years ago. It is going nuts in that pot, compared to the ones in the ground, probably 3 times the size. This was planted a couple weeks into May, starting with about a 4" plant. You can judge the size from the milk crate it is sitting on:
DSCF0769 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Thank you for taking the time to reply. We have had an exceptionally warm run of it in Scotland which has been great but maybe not so much for the plants. I will cut my losses and replace,and hope I can keep up with watering everything else! Thanks.

It wasn't the heat that made problems for your rosemary. It is a mediterranean herb, native to places like Italy and Greece. It thrives on heat.

Good luck with the new rosemary, linzi. As rainbow said, heat will not bother it. In fact, they thrive in it, and the last few weeks it has been very warm here, and this is why that one is growing so well. Just beware when it gets below 20°, which won't be soon!