Use the leaves of Rosemary ‘Tuscan Blue’ for flavouring in the kitchen and grow it as an ornamental shrub or as a hedge in the garden. Plant it up close to paths, then every time you walk by it’s easy to brush against the foliage or pull a leaf or two and rub it around between your hands. This releases the oils in the little leaves and produces the wonderful aroma that soothes the senses.
Some clever souls plant rosemary close to the barbecue. Then, when the cooking’s under way, they throw a few stems onto the hot plate and enjoy the great smell as the leaves sizzle.
‘Tuscan Blue’ is an especially good, upright growing rosemary, with pretty, sky-blue blue flowers over a long period. The foliage is attractive year round, especially when it’s given an occasional clip to make it extra bushy. The fact that it responds readily to clipping makes it superb for use as a low hedge. It grows with the greatest of ease providing it has a sunny situation and well drained soil. Just about the only reason rosemary fails is if it the soil doesn’t drain freely. It is cold hardy and perfectly happy in windy situations and poor soils. In good soils it should not be fed as this will encourage excessively soft growth.
‘Tuscan Blue’ can be grown with other herbs or used as an ornamental hedge for a vegetable garden. It also looks striking with other herbs, especially lavenders, and with some fruiting trees, notable ‘Meyer’ lemons and olives. Combine it in a clipped hedge with bay, Laurus nobilis, for an intriguing juxtaposition of foliage texture and form, and a useful duo for the kitchen as well.
There’s fun to be had too by growing it with other rosemary varieties, such as the lower growing ‘Lockwood de Forest’ and ‘Mason’s Finest’.
You can sneak Rosmary ‘Tuscan Blue’ into the ornamental garden too. Try it with some of the perennial lavender varieties such as the almost forever flowering ‘Indigo Spires’, a perennial wallflower variety such as ‘Apricot Twist’ and a lime and green Euphorbia such as ‘Kea’ or Polychroma or the dwarf, summer and autumn flowering shrub Ceratostigma ‘Forest Blue’.
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Schemes & Themes
using Liddle Wonder Plants