Rosemary

Rosemary is one of those plants I'll always love. Not for its flavour, its looks, or its smell, although these are great, but for very personal reasons. When I was very young, the person dearest to me in all the world was my grandmother on my father side, Janet. She was the kindest, warmest, most loving woman in the world, and (unlike my evil parents!) she let me eat the sugary cereals, and spend my pennies on chocolate. Sadly, when I was 9, she got cancer. Actually, that's not strictly true. She got cancer before that, but being the kind woman she was, chose not to tell anyone other than her husband about it until the point when it became clear she ...

Like many herbs, rosemary is a rather attractive plant. It has long, narrow, spine-like leaves of a silvery, grey-green colour. There is a single species ? r.officinalis ? but you can buy several varieties. Albus is the most popular and the one I prefer, for it has delicate, blue-mauve flowers and is perfect for culinary use. There is also a white-flowered variety, Miss Jessops, and you can buy a ground cover type, Prostratus, to use in rockeries and the like. It is a dense, pretty bush and, as an evergreen, makes a good [edible!] hedge. Grown to full height, it is between four and six feet tall. Mine is not much more ...

When I first moved to this country in the mid-70’s rosemary was known but not widely used or at least its use was limited to recipes involving lamb. Whilst its flavour makes it a wonderful herb to use with lamb there are also many other uses it can be put to. Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) from the family Labiatae, is a shrub with short (1.5cm) tough, pointed evergreen leaves similar to pine needles spaced densely on the branches. It flowers in the late spring/summer producing small delicate pale blue flowers growing in clusters. It has a strong pungent odour. As well as the green variety silver and gold striped types also exist. The green variety is ...