One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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.

You can determine when it's the best time to plant roses in Wilmington by reviewing the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Roses

Frost tolerance for roses:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Roses are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which means that you can get them planted earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant roses in Wilmington 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 roses and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your roses may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your roses indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Wilmington the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Wilmington is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Wilmington it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your roses if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Wilmington

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Wilmington

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