By Denise Crane

When we originally put landscaping around the pool that we had saved up to build, the landscaper put in two rosemary bushes. I learned a lot about paying attention to the patterns of sun from those two rosemary bushes. Those sun lessons have proven to be very important as our trees have matured while we weren’t paying attention.

Rosemary bushes like lots and lots of sun.

The rosemary bush on the front left side of the pool grew steadily. I would trim it back now and again and, as it matured the undermost part of the bush got weedy, but I enjoyed cooking with rosemary as it grew. And grew. And grew. And grew. And pretty soon, we looked out and realized we couldn’t see one end of the pool because the plant grew so large that it was now an obstruction. It was getting lots and lots of sun and was very happy.

The rosemary bush on the front right side of the pool never grew as well. It didn’t get as much sun, and the couple of hours difference in the day had a dramatic effect on the growth. It grew much more slowly, and, yet, it developed the weedy undergrowth at the same pace as the big one.

The huge one we eventually removed. I gave it to someone as a transplant. They forgot to plant it in a timely manner and it died. I could still retrieve enough rosemary to season the occasional food from the remaining smaller plant. The small one was killed in the “snowmageddon” winter that made national news. Everyone lost a lot of plants in that week- long freeze and any plant that wasn’t healthy and hardy got impacted mightily. The following Spring I replaced it with one on sale at the grocery store and discovered that apparently squirrels like rosemary because they promptly pulled it out of the ground several days in a row. I never did figure out if they were trying to eat it or trying to plant acorns where the soil had been disrupted, but the poor rosemary succumbed to the repeated trauma.  

I am now growing one in a container I set in the same spot as the one that grew so well for so long. So far the squirrels have left it alone. I've given it some plant food and made sure the sprinkler will hit it often enough so that when the water restrictions begin in the summer months, an easy combination of sprinkler and hand watering can allow it to make it through the hottest months.

For all things, there is a balance to be had of too much of a thing and not enough of a thing, and it can be the difference between thriving and just surviving. Maybe it is sun, maybe it is water, maybe it is the soil or the plant food. Maybe it’s the prayer time, maybe it’s the silence, maybe it’s a good walk on a cool morning. Pay attention to the balance. It’s important.