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.

You should be able to estimate when it's the best time to plant roses by reviewing the USDA zone info for South Milwaukee.

Planting Calendar for Roses

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

Since roses are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant roses in South 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 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 grow to maturity. If you are starting your roses indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In South Milwaukee the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for South Milwaukee is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in South Milwaukee there is a last frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your roses if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for South 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 South Milwaukee

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