Re: rosemary hedges, was disease
- Subject: Re: rosemary hedges, was disease
- From: A* L*
- Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 15:08:50 +0000
Jan Smithen wrote:
>
> Hi Carol, and all considering a rosemary hedge:
>
> I've now seen about three rosemary hedges in southern California. All are doing
> well, and I've not heard of "Crown Gall" disease on any individual rosemary
> here, although I have seen it on roses. The cultivar used in the hedges I'm
> familiar with is "Tuscan Blue", a widely available upright rosemary. Only one
> of the hedges shows any splitting, and this is in a spot that gets some shade.
>
> I wish I knew if rosemary starts as easily as other plants used for hedging.
> Can anyone tell me if cuttings taken now and stuck in the soil 6" to 8" apart
> will root? ? ? The hedges I'm familiar with were planted from 1-gallon cans
> at 10" apart and that can get pretty expensive!
>
> A
> > Okay - I'm dying of curiosity. And, I'm thinking of a small rosemary hedge
> > of my own, in LA (south facing hillside, north of the river, limited fog),
> > nothing approaching the magnificence of Alessandra's. Is the crown gall
> > agent common in California? The site Ryan provided said it was worldwide,
> > carried on grape cuttings, although only a very few strains are
> > pathogenic...
>
> I am not convinced that all the dying Rosemarys are infected with Crown Gall, ours die for the hell of it with very few showing gall symptoms. The wet English weather doesn't help, last year we lost about a third instead of a quarter of all our Rosemary hedging and bought some Dutch imports to replace them. These looked magnificent, smelt of nothing whatever and promptly started to die. Indeed so beautiful did they look that customers bought them en masse in spite of being warned of my misgivings and in spite of the fact that I wanted them for my own hedging.....but then when one's customers wave handfuls of money at one, it is hard to be selfish and say that one wants to keep them all for oneself. Nice to have the money but highly detrimental to one's reputation, however much one warns the customer, they still blame you when the wretched things die on them. Admittedly some are still alive, but it has been a struggle to keep them going and not the sort of plant one wants !
on a commercial nursery. Although determined to die, none has shown signs of Crown Gall
The strain of Rosemary definitely makes a difference, The prostrate and
semi-prostrate seem comparatively resistent to this mysterious disease
and we have some white flowered ones that have been around for the last
twenty years which are the ones we propagate for people who just want
"rosemary" to cook with rather than a named variety. We also got some
very farinaceous, broad leaved sprigs from Israel about ten years ago
and put those that we didn't sell to restaurants on the propagation
bench. These were the best strain of culinary Rosemary I have ever
encountered, they also weighed heavy so there was less picking to make
up a kilo, unfortunately not only did they prove to be less hardy than
the white ones outdoors but they are also the only variety to show
symptoms of crown gall (which doesn't seem to spread to other varieties
very easily) or we would have persisted with them, however in a tunnel
their growth was amazing and their smell overpowering.
At least all our varieties seem resistent to the splitting that others
have referred to so perhaps there is something in our English rain after
all.
Guess I have muddied the waters still further, sorry folks, but it would
be nice to have an answer to the sudden death problem. Incidentally I
was in Pershore, one of our foremost horticultural colleges this week
and there on proud display, was a "Sissinghurst" Rosemary dying in the
way we all know and hate, so if they haven't cracked the problem, I
don't suppose anyone else has, not in Britain anyway
Anthony
