Rosmarinus officinalis "Prostratus"

Where the upright rosemaries reach for the sky, the Prostrate Rosemary lies down and flows, spilling in long, trailing, aromatic stems that pour over a wall, a bank, or the rim of a raised bed. The plant is the same species that flavors the Sunday roast, Rosmarinus officinalis, lately reclassified by botanists as Salvia rosmarinus, but grown here in a low, spreading form that trades the shrub's usual stiffness for a soft, cascading habit.

The name rosemary descends from the Latin ros marinus, the dew of the sea, for the plant hazes the dry coasts of the Mediterranean in pale blue where the salt air drifts inland. Rosemary has served cook and healer for millennia, the resinous needles stripped for the kitchen and steeped as a tonic tea, woven into wreaths of remembrance, and kept by the door as much for luck and fragrance as for the pot. The trailing forms have long been prized for softening the hard edges of terraces and stone in the old hillside gardens of Italy and Spain.

In the garden, creeping rosemary is a groundcover with a job to do: cascading over a low wall, knitting a fragrant mat down a hot, sunny slope, tumbling from a tall container, or lining the front of an herb bed where every brush of the hand or hem releases the scent. Pale blue flowers stud the stems in spring and often again in the cool of fall, drawing bees to one of the earliest and latest nectar sources of the year. Pair the plant with lavender, thyme, and other sun-baked Mediterranean companions on lean, sharply drained ground.

Creeping rosemary runs more tender than the stiff upright kinds, happiest in the mild winters of USDA zones 8 to 10, and resents cold, wet soil above all. Give the plant a hot, open site with the sharp drainage of a wall top or a gritty raised bed, hold back on water and feeding, and the low mat will hold evergreen and aromatic the year round. Kitchen herb, pollinator lure, and living drapery over stone, all from a single undemanding plant that asks little more than sun and dry feet.