Tips for propagating rosemary in water with 100% success! 

00:17 Time when rosemary roots from cuttings
00:04 Choose rosemary branches to propagate
01:25 The difference between young stem and old stem
02:03 Length of rosemary cuttings
02:28 Cut off the leaves at the base of the rosemary branch
02:57 Choose a glass jar for cuttings
03:13 How to water cuttings
03:30 Placement of rosemary branches
04:50 Rosemary root growth from cuttings
Rosemary Propagation Overview:
It is very easy to propagate rosemary, if you know how. However, my first few blind attempts were total failures. None the less, if you are aware of two key points/tricks, then you will have no problem.
- Rosemary propagation trick#1.
Take the clippings from a branch with new growth (green stem).
This is typically in the spring, but could be anytime depending on the watering conditions.
- Rosemary propagation trick #2.
Make short clippings.
You want to take a clipping that is about 3 to 5 inches long. This was totally against my initial “intuition.” In the past I tried rooting a bigger/longer branch with the assumption being that more plant would mean a faster result. However, this approach was rather unsuccessful… (Smaller is better. Yea, who knew?) .
As it turns out, roots sprout much better from a green stem than from a dark woody one. In the case of rosemary, that green part of the stem is found at the last 3 to 5 inches of a branch when it is growing. Therefore, if you have a shorter branch, you will have more green wood on the cutting.
Then you just follow normal rooting procedure.
Make a short clipping from the end of a branch
Remove about an inch or two of the lowest needle like leaves.
Stick the cut end in clean water, and be sure not to cover the remaining leaves with water.
Put the cuttings in bright shade.
Wait a few weeks
That’s it.
The results of my little rosemary growing experiment.
I cut up long, medium and short stems from a rosemary bush and put them in water. They all went into the water at the same time. I did not add any supplements to the water such as rooting hormone. I only used water.
Rosemary propigation results:
The smaller stems (with more green wood), had the most roots with a near 100% success rate.
The medium length stems had less roots with about 50% success rate.
The longer stems had the least amount of small roots and about 65% did not root at all.