Can I cut my rosemary in half?

[Rosemaryandlavender1]

I inherited this rosemary bush with the house so I'm not sure how long it has been in the ground but it is now enormous - both in length and width.
Can I cut the top half off or will I kill it?

I’m no gardener, but I have to say that my rosemary seems to be indestructible!

I think you can cut back so long as you stay on the green (ie not into old wood). I treat it like lavender.

You can cut it back to the new wood,but if you hack into old wood it won’t regenerate. It’s like lavender, once it goes leggy it’s best to whip it out and put in a new one

It’ll be fine so long as there are little green shoots below your cuts.

Yes, you can prune it ( cut it in half , I thought you meant vertically 🙀). Make sure you have sharp secateurs, ragged cuts let disease enter.

If very radical, do it in stages rather than one fell swoop, to give the plant time to heal and recover between surgeries.

Dh once did something similar to our very established rosemary. It survived fine. The lopped off bit never regrew, there waded just a branch stump there - but sounds like you don’t want it to regrow anyway?

Terrible picture but this is the size I would ideally like it to be cut back to, I'm quite petite and it's almost as tall as me. Overshadowing anything else I attempt to plant near it.

No I don't want it to re grow as it is getting bigger and bigger each year. I would have just taken the whole thing out but my DH wants to keep it.

What have you got to lose ?

And don't forget

Rosemary and garlic in with the fat in your chips and roast potatoes

Rosemary and garlic focia bread

Is this achievable without killing the whole thing? I have sharp secateurs and was going to tackle it today.

If it survived the first cut you can cut it every year - I used to just take it back as and when we needed some

It’s achievable but just be careful when pruning as the pruned bits may well not get any new growth so you will get bare stumps there iyswim. Keep standing back and checking shape and that it still looks green overall.

Thanks alot to everyone who replied!

Good advice I will do that.

Yes, it will do it good.

Just nip it back stick by stick and it will branch into a more bush like form. Next year you can add more shape.

This is how much I have taken off so far.
Going to attempt to neaten it up abit but I am happy with the new size.

Put it at you gate for people to take if you can’t use it, or pop down to your local farm shop and see if they can sell it.

Was going to suggest waiting until after flowering as they have lovely blue flowers in early spring which bees like but I may be too late!

Stick those cuttings in a pot of soil or glass of water straight away! You'll probably get lots of new plants to use or give away, and if the original one stays a bit leggy you can just replace it.

I do it by peeling a piece about 6 inches from the tip and pop it in a glass of water so you can see when it roots. Very satisfying!

You could also use a couple of tips as cuttings so that you have a replacement if the original plant doesn't survive the pruning.

OP, in my experience with Rosemary what you are proposing is a light trim!

How it looks now
I have managed to get it at slightly below the height of the hedge behind it

Previously it was a good foot or so higher. Some of them are still in flower

Looks good. We had four or five plants (going to be herbs for cooking) but they ended up as a hedge which was chest height. OH cut them right back, I thought they were dead but somehow grew back. Ended up having to dig them up.