Salvia rosmarinus Capri - Rosemary

Salvia rosmarinus 'Capri' is a small, compact rosemary with an intensely spreading, almost weeping habit. With its fragrant evergreen foliage and languid growth, it looks wonderful in a pot, between rocks in a rockery, or on top of a wall. In spring, it is covered with small lavender-blue flowers that attract bees, with abundant flowering often continuing in late summer and autumn. It retains excellent resistance to summer drought from its Mediterranean origins. Finally, unlike upright varieties, it ages well, regenerating itself spontaneously by layering.

Rosemary officinalis, recently renamed Salvia rosmarinus, is a small shrub native to the Mediterranean basin belonging to the Lamiaceae family. This family includes many medicinal and aromatic plants. In addition to its many food and therapeutic properties, this plant has long been believed to purify the air and ward off evil spirits. It was burned as incense around the Mediterranean. Depending on the region and its natural environment, it has locally differentiated, showing quite varied characteristics of hardiness, habit, and flowering.

Salvia rosmarinus 'Capri' is part of a group called Prostratus, which includes trailing varieties. This selection has reduced growth and naturally trailing vegetation, almost constrained. This undershrub will reach 10 to 30 cm tall, depending on growing conditions (it will be smaller if exposed to strong and repeated winds), and spread up to a maximum of 40 to 50 cm. Its growth is slow in poor and dry soil and slightly faster in rich and moist soil, where its lifespan will be shorter and its habit less dense. In the north, it usually flowers from May to June and can bloom again until late summer, in waves. Further south, it flowers from February-March to early May. Its flowering resumes in October, after a dry summer. It is actually induced by the return of rain after a period of severe drought. 'Capri' bears tiny flowers that are clustered in spikes along the young branches. The evergreen foliage consists of small, glossy, narrow, whitish-green leaves. They are unique in that they are rolled up, giving them a linear appearance. This characteristic is an adaptation to drought. The 'Capri' variety has particularly aromatic foliage, with a scent of rosemary and a hint of lavender. It is slightly less hardy than the type, down to -12°C in well-drained soil.

Compact, dense, full of flowers for a long period, fragrant in the air and in the kitchen, Rosemary officinalis and its variations are great for quickly establishing the landscape of a dry garden, a rockery, or simply an arid area where the soil is thin. It can be associated with other ground cover plants such as the Winecup Mallow with magenta flowers (Callirhoe involucrata), the 'Compactum' Alyssum, Cistus skanbergii, or even Teucrium chamaedrys, for example. It is an excellent source of nectar for bees, at a time of year when flowers are still scarce.