On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:55:48 -0700, "Bob Terwilliger"
> wrote:

>Leonard wrote:
>
>>> I'm *extremely* interested! It's just that I recognize my complete
>>> inability
>>> to keep plants alive.
>>
>> It's not a complete inability. It's a lack of passion. I'm cursed with
>> it too. You ought to see my lawn. If I killed the dandelions, I'd have
>> to reseed and pay attention. Not likely.
>
>It's more than that; it's also a lack of knowledge. See below.
>
>
>> I put a tomato plant in my front flower bed this year but neglected to
>> support it. Well... I supported it with a piece of rock. I got a couple
>> of tomatoes out of it, but most were beaten to death against the rock
>> during wind events.
>
>I didn't know that tomato plants *needed* to be supported. That's what I
>mean by lack of knowledge. I know that plants need water; that's about the
>entirety of my gardening knowledge.
>
>
>> Where I live, I could make a border of rosemary and thyme without
>> effort. They're perennial in my outside flower pots, so I assume they'd
>> be perennial otherwise. That'd be a border of rosemary and thyme between
>> one patch of dandelions sparsely grassed and another.
>> Say la vee or something like that.
>
>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.
>
>Bob


One of my rosemary plants is about 5 feet tall. There may be some low
growing varieties that you would have to get if you want ground cover.
--
Susan N.

"Moral indignation is in most cases two percent moral,
48 percent indignation, and 50 percent envy."
Vittorio De Sica, Italian movie director (1901-1974)

Susan wrote:

> One of my rosemary plants is about 5 feet tall. There may be some low
> growing varieties that you would have to get if you want ground cover.

Thanks. Poking around online, I didn't see any rosemary plants which would
be suitable for me to use where I was contemplating using it. But I still
want to plant rosemary; I just won't use it for ground cover.

Bob

Bob Terwilliger wrote:
> Susan wrote:
>
>> One of my rosemary plants is about 5 feet tall. There may be some
>> low growing varieties that you would have to get if you want ground
>> cover.
>
> Thanks. Poking around online, I didn't see any rosemary plants which
> would be suitable for me to use where I was contemplating using it.
> But I still want to plant rosemary; I just won't use it for ground
> cover.

Have you looked at creeping rosemary?

nancy

"Bob Terwilliger" > wrote in message
...
> Susan wrote:
>
>> One of my rosemary plants is about 5 feet tall. There may be some low
>> growing varieties that you would have to get if you want ground cover.
>
> Thanks. Poking around online, I didn't see any rosemary plants which would
> be suitable for me to use where I was contemplating using it. But I still
> want to plant rosemary; I just won't use it for ground cover.
>
> Bob

It depends where you live and how cold it gets in the winter whether
rosemary will live through the winter. Be sure to check for varieties that
have a low temp tolerance (I think max is about 15-20 F). Rosemary doesn't
spread in the sense that I think you mean. It doesn't drop seeds that
become rosemary seedlings. (of course, I live in a zone where rosemary
doesn't last the winter) Rosemary plants will get very big. They can
become a sizeable hedge in time. There are low growing, creeping or draping
varieties of rosemary that might be nice rambling over a rock garden. If it
is an interest, reading seed catalogs in the winter is educational, if
you're not interested, it's a bore.
Janet

"Janet Bostwick" wrote
> "Bob Terwilliger" wrote

>> Thanks. Poking around online, I didn't see any rosemary plants which
>> would be suitable for me to use where I was contemplating using it. But I
>> still want to plant rosemary; I just won't use it for ground cover.

Hi Bob. I'm the 'break even' zone for this.

I have a 3ft or so tall rosemary at the front of the house. Don put it in
the front planter spot by accident but it seemed so happy, we left it there.
Survived the winter last year which suprised me. We give it a regular
haircut when making potatoes and things.

> It depends where you live and how cold it gets in the winter whether
> rosemary will live through the winter. Be sure to check for varieties
> that have a low temp tolerance (I think max is about 15-20 F). Rosemary
> doesn't spread in the sense that I think you mean. It doesn't drop seeds
> that

Yup. Lettuce, now that stuff spreads! It's hilarous but in my back yard,
some of the 'grass' is lettuce. I'm about to replant one bolted container
set now and put in butter lettuce. I don't need to plant more baby lettuce
as it's now growing up around the bricks where the planter was ;-)