One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Derby you can figure out when it's the best time to plant rosemary by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Rosemary

Frost tolerance for rosemary:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Rosemary do well in cold which means that you can get them planted much earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant rosemary in Derby 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 rosemary and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your rosemary may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your rosemary indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Derby. You should expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Derby is an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Derby you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your rosemary if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Derby

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Derby

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