Any unusual weather conditions this year?

FataMorgana

Do I see webs shrouding the growing tips? My guess is spider mites.

By UK standards it has not been a great summer and was a very wet spring .... but nothing ridiculous and the area appears fairly well drained. Also I can't see any evidence of spider mites .... maybe it is just the photo. Would they cause this sort of damage?

Oh - I didn't see you were here in the UK. No need to tell me about this summer! Awful.

I'm still inclined to say spider mites. I thought I could see the tips of the branches gathered up and webby. But another possibility is tomcats spraying or someone or something breaking the branch off a bit. Have you had a good look at where it joins the rest of the bush? Final thought is fungal rot at the roots because of all the rain we've had.

I'd just cut out the manky section. The rest looks fine and it will grow back. I can't see if it is in a pot or not. If it is it would be easier to grow it in the ground. It's perfectly hardy here unlike much of the US.

Rosemary does well in much of the USA in areas with MUCH colder winters than the UK's. It's the lack of real summer heat that's the problem. It grows like a weed here and I get buried in snow in the winter but it roasts here in summer.

Here is a link that might be useful:

I did say MUCH of the US, not ALL of the US. Maybe I should have said PARTS of the US - there have been plenty of posts here over the years from people unable to overwinter rosemary. IMO lack of summer heat is not the problem. We don't get heat here anything like most of you and rosemary thrives. 70 is a pretty hot day over here - 80 is a scorcher. My understanding is that it is the winter cold which gets rosemary in parts of the US below z7. Most of the UK would be zone 8 ish, based on winter temps, not summer ones. An average UK winter seldom goes below freezing for more than a few days at a time. I have a rosemary which is about 20 years old and it has certainly never experienced a 'roasting' summer.

Njoasis, I beg to disagree. More than half of the US is zone 6 or less. I'm in zone 6. Rosemary doesn't survive here unless you have exactly the right microclimate that gives a zone bump. Flora is correct, even the hardiest rosemary "arp" doesn't survive in much of the United States without luck and extra help.

Ourarka, I saw you were in the UK and had no clue if your weather was as rotten and unusual as mine this summer. I've had heat and drought which has punished plants, trees, and bushes very fiercely here. Things that normally do well were failing and turning brown. Seems like you had the opposite weather I did but it was probably equally hard on the vegetation.

FataMorgana

That really surprises me as our winters are cold, and WET usually and I give mine no special assistance. I guess rosemary IS a strong indicator species to zone 7. I can tell you this much, where it is hardy, it grows like a weed! And, afterall, much rosemary chicken can you make?! :)

I think there are many Northern gardeners that would love that problem! ;)

FataMorgana

Getting back to the problem plant, I would cut out anything dead or dying. Your plant should be fine and eventually recup. Yes, I absolutely love my rosemary weeds! Seeing that they have not taken over the whole U.S. of A. makes me love'em even more! And, btw, If you have never had lemon-rosemary chicken, you have not had chicken. There is no comparison. Rachel Ray's recipe is basically the one I use. But duck is on the menu tonight, oh drat!

njoasis - I use rosemary with more or less any meat. It's a classic with lamb but I have so much I use it constantly - also with roasted vegetables and potatoes. I don't really use recipes except for baking where the proportions are important. Why not shove some into the duck? You can also use it for a hair rinse.

njoasis...my favorite recipe for wild duck is smothered in rosemary.

We are creatures of habit. Never even thought of using Roseary on the duck--mine is always covered in orange sauce. Thanks for your recipes!

The last time mine looked like that it was dead soon after. I took cuttings from the healthy looking branches which gave me more starts. They seem to die from the center out.

Rosemary goes great on almost any meat. Just type in rosemary recipes and search the web. As I keep saying I have a genealogy program I use to keep track of all my recipes in one easy to find location by name so they are so much easier to find then browsing my cookbooks or the web.

Not forgetting rosemary in desserts e.g. ice cream, panna cotta, apple pie; with fish, especially mackerel; as part of bouquet garni in stews and casseroles; in pasta dishes. In fact you can use it in pretty much any dish you fancy. Just make it up as you go along. Same goes for any culinary herb as long as you remember that the 'woody' herbs (sage, thyme, bay,rosemary etc) are best cooked in the dish and the 'soft' ones (mint, basil, parsley, coriander etc) go in near the end for best flavour.