Rosemary produces beautiful purple, pink, or blue flowers during its flowering period which happens as a natural part of its annual cycle. This period usually begins in the spring and lasts throughout the summer, although it can actually continue throughout the whole year in certain parts of the world.
When rosemary is flowering, you usually don’t have to do anything but it depends on your specific situation and goals. Once it finishes flowering, however, it is a good idea to prune it. I have written this article to make sure you do what is best suited to fit your goals.
I will cover absolutely everything you need to know about rosemary flowering in this article. I have been in that situation countless times, so I figured I could help my readers with any questions they might have.
I get into the topic of when rosemary will flower, why it happens, and much more but most importantly, what you should do when your rosemary is flowering which I will cover first.
What To Do When Rosemary Is Flowering (2 Good Options)
The most common, and also most important, question I have heard from people whose rosemary bushes had started flowering is if they need to do something.
Whether you should do something or not depends on your goals. I will teach you what you should know to make the right decision.
The simple version of the answer is no. You don’t need to do anything when your rosemary is flowering. However, it is recommended to prune the plant once it finishes flowering.
That is what I (almost always) do when my rosemary is flowering and also what I almost always advise people to do. To simply just let their rosemary flower.
Plus if you don’t remove the flowers, you get to enjoy looking at them. I find this to be an excellent bonus. Look how nice they are and just imagine hundreds of them all over your rosemary bush like in my photo at the beginning of this article.
The more complicated version of the answer is that you can delay the flowering process and sometimes even prevent it entirely. To do this, you need to remove the flowers as soon as they appear. This needs to happen fast to keep the plant focused on growing and producing foliage rather than flowers. Keep in mind that flowering is a continuous process so this can require a lot of effort.
If you want to try to delay or prevent flowering in your rosemary, check out my article about how to remove rosemary flowers without damaging the plant. In it, I explain and show everything you need to know.
I personally think it is both much better and much easier to just let your plant flower. In my opinion, the advantages of doing that are much greater than the opposite. But again, that depends entirely on your goals.
I have made this table to give a quick overview of the advantages of letting rosemary flower vs. stopping it.
| Advantages of letting rosemary flower | Advantages of preventing or delaying flowering |
| The flowers attract pollinating insects which benefit your whole garden | Recommended if you don’t want bees and other insects in your garden |
| Requires no extra time or effort | Can lead to increased production of new foliage |
| Flowering leads to the production of seeds | Prevents self-seeding |
| Flowering rosemary can self-seed | Maintains optimal flavor of leaves |
| The flowers are edible | |
| The flowers are visually appealing |
To me, the only advantage of removing the flowers that makes it worth considering is the fact that the leaves can develop a slightly more bitter flavor when the plant is flowering. That being said, I can barely feel the difference (especially once the leaves are cooked), but of course, this is different for everybody.
What to do if you still aren’t sure
Just let your rosemary flower. It will save you a lot of time and if you don’t want to prevent or delay flowering for a specific reason, it is just not worth it.
You can always cut some flowers if you want to use them in cooking or as decorations. I often take some to use as a nice and colorful garnish, but I always make sure to leave most of the flowers on the plant.
If you still need help deciding, take a look at another article I wrote where I dive deeper into the advantages of letting rosemary flower vs. preventing it.
Can You Use Flowering Rosemary and Eat the Flowers?
Some of the most common questions I have been asked about rosemary are whether you can harvest and eat it when it is flowering and if you can eat the flowers, so I want to cover that now.
The answer is yes! You can harvest from your rosemary when it is flowering and you can eat both the green foliage and the flowers. To me, the flowers taste similar to the foliage although often a bit milder. I like to use them as a nice and colorful garnish for many dishes. In my opinion, they fit very well with a lot of different types of food.
There is a handful of things you should know before you harvest flowering rosemary (whether you harvest foliage or flowers). For example, you might notice a slight change in the flavor of the foliage when the plant is flowering.
Here are some important things you should know before harvesting flowering rosemary:
- Rosemary flowers are edible
- Flowering rosemary grows back slower than normally
- Do not harvest more than a third of the plant at the same time
- Consider leaving some flowers on the plant to attract pollinating insects
These are the primary things to consider, but there are a few more points you might want to keep in mind as well. I cover everything you need to know in another article specifically about things you should know before harvesting flowering rosemary or rosemary flowers.
The thing you have to be most aware of when picking rosemary flowers is how to pick them properly to avoid damaging them or the plant. This is not rocket science, but it is definitely worth learning the best way to do it. It is a bit outside of the scope of this article, but I have written another article where I explain the best way to pick rosemary flowers as well as some ways to preserve them for a long time.
The Reason Why Your Rosemary Is Flowering (Good to Know)
Other than “What should I do?”, “Is it bad?”, and “Can I still eat it?”, I think the most common question people have asked me about flowering rosemary is why it happens in the first place.
This is an extremely important question, because flowering, other than giving the plant a nice and colorful look, actually serves an extremely important purpose. In fact, flowering is crucial for the survival of the species.
The purpose of rosemary flowering is to facilitate reproduction by attracting pollinators, allowing for pollination, seed production, and dispersal, ultimately ensuring the survival of the species.
Flowering happens as a completely natural part of rosemary’s annual cycle. It is the first step in the process of seed production you will see. Once the flowers mature fully, you will notice the small and fresh green seeds developing inside the flowers, as you can see in my photo here.
After a short period, usually a few weeks, the seeds will turn brown and become dry. At this point, they are ready to be collected and can be sown if you wish to grow more rosemary plants.
If you want to learn more about this, I highly recommend that you take a look at another article I wrote specifically about why rosemary flowers and what it means where I go into more detail and also cover a bunch of things that can help trigger flowering in rosemary.
Hopefully, I’ve taught you a little bit about why rosemary is flowering but another interesting and highly relevant thing you should know is what actually happens to the plant when it is flowering. That’s the next thing I cover in this article.
6 Things That Happen to Rosemary When It Is Flowering
It might not be easy to notice if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but rosemary actually behaves very differently when it is flowering compared to when it is not.
Here are some important things that happen to rosemary when it is flowering:
- The flowers attract bees and other pollinating insects
- Green foliage grows slower
- Seeds are starting to form
- the plant can self-sow
- Slight changes in flavor
Changes in growth pattern and flavor are, of course, important but to me, the most important thing that happens when rosemary is flowering is that it will attract high numbers of bees and other pollinating insects.
These insects help pollinate the plants in your garden by carrying and spreading the pollen from the flowers which heavily boosts the overall production of fruit from your various plants.
For this reason and several others, flowering is an incredibly important process, not only in rosemary but in most other garden plants too. If you want to learn more about it, I wrote another article where I cover the topic of what happens when rosemary is flowering in more detail.
Rosemary Flowering Timing (When, How Often, for How Long)
Something I find fascinating about rosemary is the timing of its flowering and how it is different all over the world. My rosemary bushes usually flower around late spring and throughout the summer but I have seen it flower all year round in the Mediterranean region (which is where it originates) and also seen plants growing in northern countries where it only flowers for a short time in the summer.
In the vast majority of the world, rosemary will start flowering at some time in the spring but as you can hear, there are also areas where this isn’t the case at all. If you want to learn more about this, head over to my article about rosemary flowering times across the world where I have made a nice table to illustrate it as clearly and simply as possible.
How long the flowering process lasts depends on several factors, but the most important factor is the climate conditions, specifically the temperature and amount of sunlight the plant receives.
In short, higher temperatures and more sunlight mean a longer flowering period, so rosemary growing in tropic and subtropic regions will flower for much longer than rosemary growing in colder climates. You can learn much more about this in my article specifically about the length of the flowering period in rosemary.
Something I’ve been asked a handful of times, usually by people whose rosemary is flowering for the first time, is how often it flowers. The answer is almost always one time per year. However, while it usually only flowers once per year, the flowering period lasts for several months, as I explained above.
That being said, there are situations where rosemary will flower twice in the same year. There is actually also a trick you can use to actively encourage a second flowering period in your rosemary. A well-timed pruning is usually all it takes, but that’s a bit outside the scope of this article, so if that’s something you want to try, I cover everything you should know in my article about how often rosemary will flower.
How To Promote Flowering in Rosemary
Ever wonder why your rosemary doesn’t bloom? Turns out, it’s not just about sunlight and water. There is a lot more to it.
Understanding the specific conditions that trigger rosemary’s flowering is important for any passionate grower. Lucky for you, that is exactly what I cover now.
The most important factors for when, how much, and for how long rosemary will flower are temperature and sunlight. However, several other climate and growing conditions also play a role. These include soil type and content, watering, root health, and pruning.
Here is a list of things you can do to encourage your rosemary to flower.
- Let your plant get at least 8 hours of sunlight per day
- Allow the plant to become slightly root bound
- Prune the plant every year and harvest frequently
- Stop using nitrogen-rich fertilizers
- Use well-draining, sandy soil with little organic matter
- Water every 1-2 weeks
I have written a whole article where I only focus on the topic of encouraging rosemary to flower and explain what you can do, so if that sounds interesting, I recommend taking a look at it.
Of course, these conditions are far more likely to occur outside than indoors but you can actually also grow rosemary indoors if you find a sunny spot for it. It can even flower indoors under the right conditions. This is something I wanted to test for myself and you can read about what I learned in this article about whether or not rosemary will flower indoors. Spoiler alert; it did as you can see in this photo. I also share some useful tips to encourage indoors-growing rosemary to flower in the article.
If you believe that your rosemary has the right climate and growing conditions but it still isn’t flowering, it could be because of a problem. That’s the next topic I want to cover.
Rosemary Flowering Problems (And How To Save Your Plant)
If your rosemary isn’t doing well, something could be wrong so let’s find out if you need to change something.
Rosemary can show several different symptoms when it isn’t doing well. One of the symptoms is that it won’t flower when it is supposed to. This can happen for several different reasons.
If your rosemary isn’t flowering even though it should, chances are it is because of one or more of the following reasons:
- Insufficient sunlight
- Incorrect soil type
- Too much nitrogen in the soil
- Incorrect pruning
- Incorrect watering
- Pests or diseases
- Wrong time of the year
- The plant is too young
In my experience, insufficient sunlight and too low temperatures are the two most common problems but all of these reasons can inhibit the flowering process.
If it sounds realistic that your rosemary is suffering from some of this, I recommend that you check out my article about possible reasons rosemary isn’t flowering where I go into more detail and explain what you should do to help your plant.
If your rosemary IS flowering but the flowers seem to be dying, your situation might be different.
Dying rosemary flowers can also happen as a result of poor growing conditions such as insufficient sunlight, incorrect watering, the wrong type of soil, and the rest of the reasons I listed above.
In my experience from what I have seen on my own rosemary bushes and other ones I have seen, dying rosemary flowers is almost never the result of a problem but rather a result of each flower having a very short lifespan. You can read much more about this in my article about the most likely reasons for rosemary flowers dying where I also explain what you can do if it turns out to be because of a problem.