Leonard wrote:

>> Rosemary seems to grow easily around here, so I'm thinking of trying to
>> plant some as ground cover in a side yard. But I don't know how quickly
>> it would spread. How many plants would I need to start off with? Does the
>> soil need to be more or less acidic? How often does it need watering, and
>> how much water should it get when I do water? Really, I know next to
>> nothing about gardening, and that's why plants die under my care.
>
> I don't know if rosemary spreads. I grow it in a pot. It looks sort of
> like a tiny pine tree and doesn't seem to spread within the pot. I ought
> to google for sure. I know it gets bigger than ground cover. It might even
> make a tree if given the chance. Somebody reading this knows. My thyme
> seems like good ground cover. It's three years old and about ten inches
> tall in the pot. Real gardeners here can tell you if I'm full of it.
> OTOH, plant a cheap tiny container of rosemary somewhere in the sunny
> side of your yard and see if it takes or takes over . Then ignore it.
> If I can grow it, anyone can. I live in whatever climate Northern Nevada
> close to the Sierra is in. Usually not below zero and not above a
> hundred, although we broke a hundred and soundly busted a 1919 record,
> yesterday.

I'm on the other side of the mountains from you, though we routinely break
100 degrees here. This summer has been cooler than usual, for which I am
grateful.

I got the idea that rosemary might be suitable for ground cover because (1)
a local automall uses it for ground cover and (2) the guy who runs my CSA
had rosemary as ground cover in the house he used to occupy. I just don't
know how much trouble it is, and whether it would stay alive under my care.
It's not that I forget to take care of plants, it's just that I go out
there, see that they aren't doing well, and have no idea what I need to do
to make them do better. Watering them often makes things *worse*.

Bob