Rosemary Bonsai Progression (2014 – 2022)

On a cold winter night in late 2014 I cooked a roast dinner. I had bought some freshly cut rosemary to add flavour from the supermarket. The sprigs of rosemary where sealed in a bag and I had a few left over, so I put one in water to see what would happen and well… it rooted.

I still have this Rosemary today, which is what we will be looking at below.

If you want to watch it in video format, you can watch the YouTube playlist below. The videos show the progression every month throughout the year, sort of like a time lapse.

Just be aware some of my earlier videos are not the best quality, but just like my trees, the quality slowly improves over time, so stick with them and they both get a little better towards the end.

Rosemary can be a hard tree to work with for bonsai, but it is easy to grow. You can read more about looking after them in my Rosemary Bonsai Care Guide.

2014

In late 2014 I took the cutting and placed in a glass of water on the windowsill and left it. After a few weeks it had started to root.

At some point I transferred it to a pot and just used garden compost.

2015

At some point in 2015 I up sized the pot. I am pretty sure I slipped it out of the smaller pot and into the larger one with more compost. I don’t think I did any root work.

2016

In 2016 I seem to have finally leant about bonsai soil and root work. The problem is I didn’t know everything.

I repotted the tree in August! Luckily it survived especially since I trimmed the roots pretty hard.

I also potted it into this green oval. It wasn’t the right pot at all. but at the time I was loving it and now I had some good soil, so we will see this an improvement.  

2017

I can’t really what happened in 2017. From the pictures’ Ive clearly been pruning the tree very now and again and allowing to it get bushier.

As for a repot, I’m not sure, but I think I did.

2018

Again with 2018 I’m not too sure about I did.

I’m fairly sure  I repotted the tree again.

I also wired some of the branches out, which really allowed the tree to start taking shape. Rosemary is very difficult to wire. It is brittle and this is a small tree, so it’s a total miracle I did not break any branches off.

I also trimmed throughout the year to build up the branch density.

2019

2019 started with a trim in late winter and then when the new grow started to show in spring I repotted the tree.

In midsummer I pruned the tree back, thinning it out quite a lot.

 I then allowed it to grow out for the rest of the year.

2020

2020 started the same way with a prune in late winter.

I again waited for the new grow to start to bud out in the spring and then repoted, this time into to a smaller pot. The colour is similar, but I felt the shape was much better for this tree. Maybe the pot is a little small, but I think it works.

A few weeks after the repot, in late spring, I actually pruned the tree.

It was also pruned again in late summer. It was very healthy and really growing quite aggressively.

Then for the rest of the year I left the tree to grow.

2021

The first work of 2021 was in the spring when I repotted the tree. The growth seemed to be in check, so it did not need pruned back in late winter.

A few weeks after the repot I lightly pruned the tree to manage the spring growth.

In the summer pulled down some lower branches to help give them a more nature angle. I wanted them to be more outwards, and less upright. I just used guy wires as it is much easier than trying to wire the whole branch. The wires didn’t need to stay on long, just a few months as they quickly set into place.

2022

In early 2022 I removed some older inner needles. This is not really a prune, but it’s similar. It can also be hard to tell you’ve done it as it is just all the old inner needles that are removed. These are blocked by the outer foliage, so you can’t see it, but more importantly, it doesn’t get much light so it is going to die back anyway. I just find it easier to remove this.

In the spring I repotted the tree. It had grown a lot of roots and as you can see the bottom of the pot was totally full of roots.

I basically removed a doormat from the root ball and you can see where the roots didn’t grow, which was where the two drainage holes where.

Usually trees grow out these holes, but this rosemary obviously preferred to stay inside the pot.

Everything was going well until summer …I am not sure what happened by the tree basically dried up and died over a couple of day.

I have a feeling it not get enough water. I am sure i watered it, but maybe not enough. Part of me also wonders if I pushed the repot too hard, pruning the root too much. I just don’t know.

There was a lot of foliage and not a lot of roots, so potentially it couldn’t handle it. However, it had actually been pushing out new growth, which would imply it was fine and it was a lack of water that was the issue.

So anyway. I some how killed it and that was 8 years of great work gone.

This rosemary came a long way from the supermarket herb pack, but sadly we will not get to see how great it could have been.

The fact that this tree even survived from a pack of herbs is incredible, I am sad its gone, but very happy to have enjoyed it while I could.

Rosemary is hard to grow as bonsai and you can read more about its suitability in this article –  Is Rosemary A Good Tree For Bonsai?