8 Types of Rosemary Compared: Which Ones Survive Winter (and Which Trail Beautifully)
Trailing rosemary isn’t less cold-hardy than upright — RHS’s own ratings prove it. Compare all 8 varieties and find the exact type for your garden.
Not all rosemary wants to be a hedge. Some varieties top out under a foot tall and are bred to spill over a wall instead of standing up like Tuscan Blue. Confuse the two and you’ll spend a season training a groundcover rosemary onto a stake, or wondering why the “trailing” plant from the nursery just keeps growing straight up.
Growth habit — not flavor, not fragrance — is the single biggest variable separating one rosemary from another, and it’s fixed by the cultivar rather than something pruning can override. This guide sorts eight real, named varieties into the three habits that matter, checks a widely repeated claim about cold hardiness against the RHS’s own ratings, and ends with a straight answer to which type fits your garden. For the full zone-by-zone planting calendar and the drainage fix that keeps rosemary alive through a cold winter, see our complete guide to growing rosemary.
Growth Habit: The Real Difference Between Rosemary Types
Rosemary sorts into three growth habits — upright, trailing (prostrate), and a mounding middle ground — and which one you get depends on the specific cultivar, not on how you prune it. The RHS classifies the species itself as “variable in habit from prostrate to upright,” ranging from 15cm to 2m tall, and recognizes trailing forms as a distinct cultivar group (the Prostratus Group) rather than a pruning style applied to a standard plant [1][2].
That distinction matters when you’re buying: a trailing cultivar will keep producing horizontal, spreading stems no matter how it’s staked, and an upright cultivar won’t flatten out no matter how hard you pin it down. If the nursery tag doesn’t name a cultivar, you’re buying a growth habit you can’t predict.
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This isn’t a minor detail. Plant a trailing type expecting it to fill in as a hedge and you’ll wait years for something that was never going to happen; plant an upright type a foot from a path edge expecting it to spread like a groundcover and you’ll be pruning encroaching growth within two seasons instead. Reading the cultivar name before buying — not just the word “rosemary” on the tag — is the only reliable way to know which shape you’re actually getting.
Upright Rosemary Varieties
Upright types grow as vertical shrubs and are the ones worth planting if cooking is the priority — they produce the most usable stem length per plant and tolerate the kind of repeat harvesting a kitchen garden needs.
| Variety | Height | Cold Tolerance | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuscan Blue | Up to 6 ft in-ground [6] | RHS H4, −10 to −5°C (species rating) [2] | Cooking, large hedges, classic Mediterranean look |
| Miss Jessopp’s Upright | ~6.5 ft (2m) [3] | RHS H4, −10 to −5°C [3] | Narrow vertical hedges, topiary, tight spaces |
| Gorizia | Tall upright; leaves roughly double standard size [4] | Not separately RHS-rated | Culinary use where leaf size matters |
| Arp | 3–4 ft [4] | Hardy to roughly USDA Zone 6 [4] | Coldest climates; the benchmark cold-hardy upright type |
The table’s bottom line: if you need one upright rosemary that survives a real winter outdoors, Arp is the tested choice — University of Illinois Extension notes it’s cold-tolerant to about Zone 6, well beyond what a generic, unnamed nursery rosemary will survive [4]. For an exact, degree-by-degree hardiness breakdown across zones, see the variety table in our full growing guide.
Trailing and Cascading Rosemary Varieties
Trailing types spread horizontally instead of growing up, which makes them groundcover and container plants rather than kitchen shrubs — they still cook fine, but that’s not what they’re bred for.
| Variety | Size | Cold Tolerance | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prostratus Group | 4–20 in tall, 3–5 ft spread [1] | RHS H4, −10 to −5°C [1] | Groundcover on slopes, cascading over walls and rock gardens |
| Huntington Carpet | 1–2 ft tall, 8 ft spread [9] | Not separately RHS-rated | Fast groundcover, erosion control on banks, container cascade |
| Blue Rain | Trailing habit, light blue flowers [4] | Not separately documented | General trailing use where a named cultivar isn’t required |
The takeaway here is the spread, not the height: Huntington Carpet reaches only 1–2 feet tall but spans up to 8 feet wide, which is why nurseries sell it as a bank cover rather than a border plant [9]. Plant it where 8 feet of lateral room is actually available — it will use it.
Indoor and Container Growers: Habit Still Matters
Growth habit changes what a container needs, not just what a garden bed needs. Upright types like Arp eventually outgrow a small pot and need repotting into something with real root depth, while trailing types like the Prostratus Group are naturally suited to hanging baskets and window boxes because their stems are built to spill over an edge rather than push upward [1][4]. If you’re overwintering rosemary indoors through a cold-winter climate, a trailing cultivar in a wide, shallow container takes up less windowsill height than an upright plant of the same age — worth factoring in before you commit a variety to a winter that starts in October. For the full indoor-overwintering routine, including light and humidity requirements, see our guide to growing rosemary indoors.
The Mounding Middle Ground: Semi-Trailing Types
A few cultivars split the difference. ‘Boule’ forms a dense, rounded mound 1–2 feet tall and wide — too compact to call upright, too self-contained to call trailing — and holds its ball shape best when clipped lightly after flowering [8]. It’s rated for USDA Zones 8–10, so treat it as a warm-climate or container variety outside the mildest regions [8].
Does Trailing Rosemary Survive Winter as Well as Upright?
According to the RHS’s own ratings, yes. The trailing Prostratus Group carries the same H4 hardiness rating (−10 to −5°C) as both the general species and the upright Miss Jessopp’s Upright [1][2][3]. Growth habit and cold tolerance are separate traits in rosemary — a trailing cultivar isn’t automatically less hardy just because it hugs the ground, and an upright cultivar isn’t automatically hardier just because it stands tall.
What actually predicts winter survival is the named cultivar, not the habit category it belongs to. Arp and generic, unlabeled nursery rosemary are both upright, but one survives a hard freeze and the other doesn’t — the gap is genetics selected for cold tolerance, not growth form. The same logic applies across the trailing types: buy the RHS-rated Prostratus Group, not an unnamed “creeping rosemary” cutting of unknown parentage, if winter survival matters where you garden.
One More Wrinkle: Rosemary’s New Scientific Name
If you’ve seen rosemary labeled Salvia rosmarinus instead of Rosmarinus officinalis, that’s not a typo. The RHS officially accepted rosemary’s reclassification into the sage genus in 2019, based on genetic research showing it’s more closely related to salvias than the older taxonomy assumed, and the change has since carried through the RHS Plant Finder [7]. The common name “rosemary” hasn’t changed, and both scientific names still appear on plant tags, in older reference books, and across nursery catalogs — you’ll see this article’s varieties listed under either name depending on where you shop.
Which Type of Rosemary Should You Plant?
Match the habit to the job, not the other way around:
- Cooking regularly, want a big shrub: an upright type — Tuscan Blue or Miss Jessopp’s Upright — pruned hard after flowering to keep it hedge-shaped.
- Hanging basket, retaining wall, or fast groundcover on a slope: a trailing type — Prostratus Group or Huntington Carpet.
- Zone 5–6 and it needs to survive outdoors: Arp, and in Zone 5 specifically, only grown in a container you can move indoors for winter.
- Small, tidy border or rockery: ‘Boule’ for its compact, self-maintaining shape.
- UK garden in a borderline county: both the upright and trailing types here carry the same RHS H4 rating, but H4 still means winter protection — horticultural fleece, or a container you can shelter — in the coldest UK winters. Treat H4 as “hardy in an average UK winter,” not bulletproof.
In my own Zone 6 garden, a Prostratus Group plant cascading over a low stone wall has outlasted two “winter-hardy” upright plants bought unlabeled from a big-box nursery. The difference wasn’t the growth habit — it was that one was a named, RHS-rated cultivar and the others weren’t. Whichever type you choose, the same harvesting rule applies to all of them: see our guide to harvesting rosemary without stressing the plant for exact cutting limits.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many types of rosemary are there?
There’s no single official count — nurseries between them list dozens of named cultivars — but nearly all of them sort into the three growth habits covered here: upright, trailing, and mounding. This guide covers eight of the most widely available and best-documented varieties across all three.
What’s the difference between upright and trailing rosemary?
Upright varieties like Tuscan Blue and Miss Jessopp’s Upright grow as vertical shrubs up to 6 feet tall and are bred for hedging and cooking. Trailing varieties like the Prostratus Group and Huntington Carpet stay under 2 feet tall but spread 3–8 feet wide, making them groundcovers rather than shrubs [1][6][9].
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→ Find My Frost DatesIs trailing rosemary as cold-hardy as upright rosemary?
Yes, generally. RHS rates the trailing Prostratus Group and the upright Miss Jessopp’s Upright at the same H4 hardiness (−10 to −5°C). Cold tolerance depends far more on the specific named cultivar than on whether it grows upright or trailing [1][3].
Can I prune a trailing rosemary to make it grow upright?
No. Growth habit in rosemary is fixed by the cultivar, not shaped by pruning — a trailing variety will keep producing horizontal, spreading stems no matter how it’s staked or trained [2].
Is rosemary called Salvia now instead of Rosmarinus?
Both names are in current use. The RHS reclassified rosemary as Salvia rosmarinus in 2019 based on genetic research, but Rosmarinus officinalis still appears widely on plant labels and in older sources, and the common name “rosemary” is unchanged [7].
Sources
- RHS. Rosmarinus officinalis Prostratus Group. Royal Horticultural Society
- RHS. Rosmarinus officinalis. Royal Horticultural Society
- RHS. Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Miss Jessopp’s Upright’. Royal Horticultural Society
- University of Illinois Extension. Rosemary. Illinois Extension
- University of Maryland Extension. Rosemary. UMD Extension
- UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions. Rosemary. University of Florida
- Gardens Illustrated. Rosemary is now a salvia, according to RHS. Gardens Illustrated
- Devil Mountain Wholesale Nursery. Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Boule’. Devil Mountain Wholesale Nursery
- Armstrong Garden Centers. Rosmarinus ‘Huntington Carpet’. Armstrong Garden Centers
