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Rosmarinus officinalis 'Gold Dust' PP19,949 (Gold Dust Rosemary) – An evergreen upright well branched shrub with aromatic 1-inch-long narrow leaves that have a dark green central band surrounded by bright yellow margins and medium blue flowers in winter and spring.
Plant in full sun to light shade in a well-drained soil. As with other Rosemary it should prove resistant to deer and rabbit predation, tolerant to salt spray, alkaline soils and drought. Hardy to 15°F or slightly less – it has been rated to USDA 7B in trials in Great Britain, but Rosemary is usually recommended only down to zone 8.
This plant was carefully selected for the strongest most stable variegation by a Canadian grower as a sport of Rosmarinus officinalis 'Rex'. It is too new to cultivation to know its ultimate dimensions, but the cultivar 'Rex' is known to get to 5 feet tall and wide and this cultivar is noted as being more compact. This plant received US Plant Patent 19,949 on April 21, 2009 and is being marketed in the US by PlantHaven.
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!
This information about Rosmarinus officinalis 'Gold Dust' PP19,949 displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate 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 that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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