When to Plant Rosemary in Milwaukee, WI

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

A common way of estimating when it's a good idea to plant rosemary is to check out the USDA zone info for Milwaukee.


Planting Calendar for Rosemary

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

Rosemary tend to make it in quite a bit of cold which means that you can plant them much earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant rosemary
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant rosemary
Probably not a good time to plant rosemary

The earliest that you can plant rosemary in Milwaukee 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your rosemary may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your rosemary indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Milwaukee. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Milwaukee and it will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Milwaukee last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your rosemary in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Milwaukee

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Milwaukee

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