Help! Can Our Rosemary Plant Survive Indoors?

We became addicted to fresh rosemary this summer and are loath to give it up. But we live in Boston and our apartment doesn't get very good sunlight - is there any hope our rosemary can survive the winter indoors?

We just brought our plant indoors last week, and its leaves are already starting to shrivel and drop off. Reading online, this appears to be caused by going from abundant light to significantly less light too quickly. We're going to try putting it closer to our kitchen window and hope that helps.

We've also read to be careful of over-watering rosemary once it's brought inside. Excess water will hang out in the soil and cause the roots to slowly decay, which kills the plant. We get paranoid about forgetting to water our plants and tend to compensate by over-watering them...so we'll have to be careful of this!

It's also important to rotate the plant every few days so every side gets a little bit of time in the sun. We think this will be particularly important for our plant given our lack of good sunlight.

We might also try pruning our rosemary back. We're proud of how bushy and robust our rosemary grew during the summer, but a few sources mentioned that cutting it back means the plant has less of itself to maintain and can concentrate the nutritional resources.

We'll give these things a try and hope for the best. Anyone else have any advice?

(Image: Emma Christensen for the Kitchn)

Comments (13)

Definitely give that guy some light! Also, a seaweed solution in place of a couple waterings may help to boost the plant's vitamin intake. It's a great natural fertilizer and may help indoor adaptation.

Put it outside during the day if you can. It can handle pretty cold temperatures...but your variety probably can't handle the entire winter outside in Boston.

Look about 1/4 of the way down on this page for tips on growing rosemary.

Oh - if you do put it outside during the day, put it somewhere cool in the house when you do bring it in at night...don't want to shock it!

Maybe also trying a bigger pot?

Also, it could simply be that it just needs pruning to encourage new growth. I had the same thing happening to my sage plant - leaves close to the ground end of each stem shriveling and dropping off, and the whole thing starting to look a little spindly -- but I noticed that on some of those stems that were dropping leaves, there were tiny new buds near where the leaves dropped off. I pruned off those older woody branches near those buds, and within a couple weeks the buds shot out into new growth. I also have a rosemary that seems to do well with a good pruning now and then.

I know a woman who has hers on her countertop and it's flourishing under a very hot kitchen lamp.

I have overwintered a rosemary tree in my apartment, where it only gets bright morning light. It did very well, no problems at all. Rosemary is very drought tolerant, so I'd err on the side of underwatering instead of overwatering.

I had the same problem, I recently move and had a large collection of herbs growing happily outside now getting very little light. Unfortunately I lost most of them (including the rosemary), The only ones to make it were the thyme, mint, and chive. They held on for about a month, and I did everything I could think of to keep them alive, (lights, pruning, less water). It makes me quite sad actually.

I had a Rosemary plant that lived on my counter and would NOT die - no matter what. I had to throw it out when I moved back to the States... but I really wish I still had it.
Your plant will be fine indoors - just make sure to use it to continue to spark new growth.

Rosemary plants are incredibly hardy, depending on the type that you have. It might be best if you leave it outside for the days when it is warm and bring it in during a cold snap. Even in Boston it should do OK during the warmer days of fall and winter. You could also heavily mulch it when it is outside to protect it. They should do fine indoors but they do need a lot of light!

I'm surprised you need to bring it indoors, it grows in britain pretty well, but its not as cold as boston there. Something I've seen people do there is wrap plants in a fleecy material to save them from the frost.

I think a lot of plants when they first come indoors drop their leaves. I've read what helps is before you move them indoors put them in the shade, then step them indoors. However I'm an apartment dweller with no balcony. I read that plants will change their leaves to suit a different environment. So most of my plants promptly drop everything when I get them, but if you look carefully there should also be quite a bit of new growth. I now have a mini orange tree, gardenia and a ficus bonsai, who've successfully adapted.

I grow rosemary outside my window ledge and only bring it inside when the temp goes below 32'. I have several plants that I have had for 5 or more years. They don't do well inside the dry house in winter because that is their natural growing season (in the mediterranean the flowering types bloom in december-feb.) If you absolutely have to keep it inside don't water it as much -let it dry out between and mist the leaves. Be sure to keep it closest to the brightest window you have. Good luck!