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Rosemary is a personal favorite plant for topiaries and I love using topiaries indoors because of its historical significant and its fragrance, as well as in cooking. Rosemary is a bit fussy but once you find the right location for her she will please you. Rosemary plants enjoy bright light and like to be placed in a sunny location, mine is on the southeast side of the house next to a glass door. Placing your plant by a window or door, where the temps get cool at night, is perfect. Keeping in mind that this is a plant from the Mediterranean, they do like warmth, and moisture. To keep your plant healthy there must be good air circulation, and they do like to be misted, but I must admit, I rarely mist and mine are healthy. Something to always keep in mind when growing rosemary. A dry rosemary is a dead rosemary. Rosemary is a tender perennial and must be taken in if you are below zone 5, or even zone 6, depending on your particular climate. Since these plants do not like to be moved, I bury the whole pot with the plant in my spring garden. When fall arrives, it’s easy to dig it up and bring it indoors.

Herb topiaries can take on a vari­ety of shapes and styles but are usually found as part of a knot garden or as single plants trained to form a specific shape. While most herbs lend themselves to both styles, there are different approaches and methods to creating each distinctive form.

Knot gardens refer to plant designs that cover the ground, creating forms from the intersecting lines. Herbs have long served as an excellent tool to form a variety of patterns, aided by a wide selection of textures and tones. To construct your own knot garden, simply start with a sunny location, well-prepared soil, healthy plants and a design that is to your liking. Once you have graphed your design on paper and have made your plant selections, transfer the design to the garden using stakes, string, a tape measure and ei­ther sand or ground white lime to mark your pattern. Transfer the dimensions from the pattern into the garden by measur­ing and marking the major elements with stakes and twine or by using sand or lime to mark your pattern. Plants are then added following the design to complete your knot garden. To create an herb topiary in a stan­dard form (a sphere on the top), start with an unpinched leader plant, a bamboo stake, twine, scissors, a clay pot and potting soil. With the herb planted upright in the clay pot, insert the stake close to the plant and use the twine to help support the plant. Place the twine at intervals as needed to encourage a straight and supported stem. Side shoots should then be removed, leaving the primary leaves. Once the leader has reached the desired height, pinch the tip. Pinch the resulting shoots neces­sary to encourage a well-branched sphere and continue to provide maintenance trimming to keep the form.

Designing and trimming are important in creating an herb topiary, but plant selection is equally important. There are a number of herbs that are particularly well suited for creating herb topiaries. Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) is particularly well suited, both in the knot garden and in forming complex designs, it is also easily formed into a sphere. English lavender (Lavandula augustifolia) works well in both a knot garden and as a sphere-shaped topiary. Santolina (Santolina chamaecyparissus), and hys­sops (Hyssopus officinalis) are often used choices for knot gar­dens for their scented qualities.

To create an herb topiary in a standard form (a sphere on the top), start with an unpinched leader plant, a bamboo stake, twine, scissors, a clay pot and potting soil. With the herb planted upright in the clay pot, insert the stake close to the plant and use the twine to help support the plant. Place the twine at intervals as needed to encourage a straight and supported stem. Side shoots should then be removed, leaving the primary leaves. Once the leader has reached the desired height, pinch the tip. Pinch the resulting shoots necessary to encourage a well-branched sphere and continue to provide maintenance trimming to keep the form. If you’re lucky, your rosemary will bloom.

While all herbs possess a variety of qualities (scent, leaf color and texture, size of leaves, etc.), also consider plants that seem most pleasing to your personal taste and experiment with those. Try one of each!

It is also possible to enjoy rosemary topiaries year round by creating an assortment of shapes and forms from single plants. The most familiar shape is that in which the plant is trained to grow with a single, straight stem and topped with a sphere. I feel that rosemary lends itself particularly well to a Christmas tree shape on which little lights can be placed during the holidays. The minor amount of heat given off from the bulbs will infuse your room with the scent of Rosemary.