Rosemary: plant wilting although the soil is moist

What it is likely to be on rosemary

1. Root rot

   Candidate 1very common on this plant

   ·source

   Sourced guidancehigh confidence

   • Royal Horticultural Society: Lavender — cultivation

   Checked 2026-08-13

   The consequence of prolonged waterlogging rather than an independent event: water moulds that are present in most soil and compost become active when roots are deprived of air, and colonise tissue that is already dying. The treatment is therefore the watering, not the fungus.

   Points towards it

   • · these are Mediterranean plants and wet roots kill them
   • · it is overwhelmingly a winter problem on heavy ground
   • · nothing was done to it — the soil did the work over a wet winter

   Argues against it

   • · the soil is dry, so waterlogging is not what is wrong — this rules it out entirely.

   Check this next

   Scrape the bark at the base with a thumbnail. Green underneath means the plant is alive and the problem is at the roots; brown and dry all the way round means it has already gone. Lavender dies of wet feet in February far more often than of cold.

   What to do now

   Improve the drainage rather than the plant. On heavy ground the reliable answer is a raised bed or a gritty container — an established lavender that has sat in wet soil all winter rarely recovers, and replanting into the same spot repeats it.

   ·source

   Sourced guidancehigh confidence

   • Royal Horticultural Society: Lavender — cultivation

   Checked 2026-08-13

2. Cold damage

   Candidate 2common on this plant

   ·source

   Sourced guidancemoderate confidence

   • Royal Horticultural Society: Rosemary — hardiness

   Checked 2026-08-13

   Blackened, translucent or limp tissue appearing suddenly after a cold night or a spell beside a draught. Tender plants show it well above freezing — basil blackens around 10 °C — so 'there has been no frost' does not rule it out.

   Points towards it

   • · a hard frost on a plant in wet ground damages the roots and the stems together
   • · winter wind on an exposed plant dries the foliage faster than frozen roots can replace it
   • · the softest growth at the tips is damaged first

   Argues against it

   • · a plant kept indoors has not been frosted — this rules it out entirely.

   Check this next

   Scratch the bark on a main stem with a thumbnail, low down and then higher up. Cold kills from the tips backwards, so live green tissue underneath at the base with dead brown above it is winter damage — root failure kills from the bottom and the base is dead first.

   What to do now

   Wait until growth restarts in spring before cutting anything, because rosemary regularly looks dead in February and shoots from the base in April. Cut back to live wood then, and improve the drainage around the crown rather than feeding it.

   ·source

   Sourced guidancehigh confidence

   • Royal Horticultural Society: Rosemary — pruning

   Checked 2026-08-13

Narrow it down

This page lists everything at once, which is the right shape for reading and the wrong shape for deciding. The interactive tool asks one question at a time, starting with whichever would separate these causes fastest, and stops as soon as further answers would not help.

Opens with the plant and the symptom already set. Nothing you answer is stored or sent anywhere — the answers live in the address bar and nowhere else.

What this does not cover

These are the causes GrowingHQ holds rules for on rosemary — not every cause there is. Where several problems look alike, the honest answer is often that they cannot be told apart by eye, and a page that named one would be guessing. If none of the above fits, the general plant wilting although the soil is moist page lists causes across all plants, and the Rosemary profile lists the problems it is prone to.