One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for Melbourne should be reffered to in order to determine when to plant lemon grass.

Planting Calendar for Lemon grass

Frost tolerance for lemon grass:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

You can plant lemon grass slightly earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant lemon grass in Melbourne is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant lemon grass and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your lemon grass may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lemon grass indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on February 15 in Melbourne. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Melbourne may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Melbourne it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to cover your lemon grass if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Melbourne

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Melbourne

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Melbourne.