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Rosmarinus officinalis 'Ed Carman' (Carman's Tuscany Rosemary) – A large upright Rosemary to 6 feet tall with mostly erect and slightly arching stems bearing large broad leaves (for a rosemary), that are up to an inch and a quarter long by 3/16 of inch wide and stick out mostly perpendicular to the thick stems. In fall through spring, with a scatted flowering at other times, appear the pale violet-blue flowers.
Plant in full sun and irrigate occasionally to infrequently. As with other Rosemary varieties this plant is resistant to deer and rabbit predation, tolerant of salt spray, alkaline soils and drought. It is cold hard to short duration temperatures down to 15°F. This is a striking large Rosemary that can be used as a solitary shrub in the garden or in multiples to create a screen or even a hedge with time
Rosmarinus officinalis 'Ed Carman' is a bit of a mystery. We received this plant in the 1980s from legendary nurseryman Ed Carman, who operated Carman's Nursery (started by his father Hugh in 1937) from 1945 until his death in 2002. Ed had a hedge of this rosemary growing in front of his Los Gatos, California nursery and he maintained that it was the "true" 'Tuscan Blue' rosemary and that what all other nurseries were growing under this name was actually a cultivar called 'Blue Spires'. He might be right but unfortunately the finer textured plant now grown in the trade as 'Tuscan Blue' is so universally grown and known by everyone that it would be nearly impossible to correct this situation and so we instead named this plant 'Ed Carman'.
Rosemary is native to the dry, rocky areas surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The name for the genus comes from the Latin name first published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 for this aromatic shrub means sea dew, derived from the Latin words 'ros' meaning "dew" and 'marinus' meaning of the sea." The specific epithet is the Latin word that signifies a plant sold as a medicinal herb.
Recent DNA analysis now shows the genus Rosmarinus to be fit squarely into the massive Salvia genus, which already has about 1,000 species. Since the specific epithet "officinalis" is already used in the genus Salvia, the new name for our common rosemary is now officially Salvia rosmarinus. Joining Rosmarinus in this move to Salvia is Perovskia and the little know genera Dorystaechas, Meriandra and Zhumeria. This change was published in an article by University of Nebraska biologist Bryan T. Drew, Jesús González-Gallegos, Chun-Lei Xiang, Ricardo Kriebel, Chloe Drummond, Jay Walker and Kenneth Sytsma titled "Salvia united: The greatest good for the greatest number" in the February 2017 issue of Taxon 66(1):133-145. For the sake of our customers and ourselves, we continue to list the Rosemary in the genus Rosmarinus!
The information about Rosmarinus officinalis 'Ed Carman' displayed on this web page is based on our research conducted in the nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also include observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share cultural information that would aid others in growing this plant. |
