Transplanting/Dividing Rosemary and Thyme
John P. Hollis
I'm going to transplant a Rosemary and a Thyme plant to a new location in my
yard. My Mom-in-Law expressed an interest in having a part of both of them.
Since I have never divided a plant before, is there anything special I need
to know, or can I just cut the suckers down the middle?
I still have the machete from my sodding project... and I'm not afraid to
use it! ;-)
John
A. Kantola
Unless the thyme is really big and bushy, you probably won't need a
machete. When it's out of the ground, look at the base and root structure;
it should be pretty straightforward (a) if it's dividable and (b) how to
pull/cut it apart so that you end up with two plants with roots.
All of the rosemaries I've ever grown have had one stem going into the
ground--not amenable to dividing, but you could probably root a cutting
pretty easily. If you've got a bona fide shrub, again, check out the base
when it's out of the ground to see if you've got more than one stem/root
system and divide from there.
Sounds like a pretty nice-smelling project all around!
Cheers,
Angie
W0lfDreamer
Yes, you can divide them. If the rosemary is large, cut the root ball
into pie shaped 'wedges' and replant. Trim back a goodly amount of
the top growth of course, so that the diminished root system can
support it. It will come back great guns.
Thymes can be divided basically the same way. I usually look for a
natural 'split' in the thymes...there's almost always a place where it
looks as if it were two plants, and that's a good place to divide it
at. If it's all one solid root mass, then you can cut it into
sections and trim back a good bit of any top growth and replant.
Give them both a little time to recover, and although you should keep
the ground around the newly planted divisions moist, neither of these
plants like an over-abundance of moisture, so don't go crazy with it
(I did that the first time I transplanted rosemary and lost them all
to root rot).
Incidently, rosemary will root along it's stems, so you can also take
stem cuttings and air layer the plant to get new ones. I did both of
these with my mother's rosemary (which is currently 5 feet tall and 6
feet in diameter) earlier this season - kept them in pots for about
a month to establish, and now have 24 new rosemary plants scattered
throughout and around my gardens.
Linda
jho...@bellsouth.net (John P. Hollis) wrote in
<E7nH4.242$Ol.6...@news1.mia>:
>Hi Group,
>
>I'm going to transplant a Rosemary and a Thyme plant to a new
>location in my yard. My Mom-in-Law expressed an interest in having
>a part of both of them. Since I have never divided a plant before,
>is there anything special I need to know, or can I just cut the
>suckers down the middle?
>
>I still have the machete from my sodding project... and I'm not
>afraid to use it! ;-)
>
>John
>
>
>
Zaphod & Trillian
have roots in a week or two. Lop the rooted branch off, and
you have two plants. The same thing works with thyme. Both
are herbs = weeds that we like. :-)