When to plant sage in Birmingham

Why these dates

Start indoors 8 weeks before the last frost or plant out after it. Never cut into bare old wood - unlike most shrubs, sage frequently fails to reshoot from it.

Hardy to around -20C. The leaves look wretched after a hard winter and the plant recovers regardless.

Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Sage are timed from 8 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 2 weeks after it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Birmingham.

Birmingham sits in zone 9a, which is milder than this crop wants, and a winter that never really arrives is its own problem. The dates below still describe the right time of year; the open question is survival rather than timing.

Do not expect a crop in the first year. A plant set out now should give its first worthwhile pick around year 1, and will then produce every year after that, which is what makes the planting decision worth getting right the first time.

See every crop timed for Birmingham →