Which herbs survive your winter: the zone question, answered properly

Find your zone first, and use the current map

The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map was updated on 15 November 2023, built from weather data for 1991 to 2020. You look yours up by typing your ZIP code into the search box at planthardiness.ars.usda.gov. Zones run 1 to 13 in ten degree Fahrenheit bands, each split into "a" and "b" halves of five degrees, and what they measure is the average annual extreme minimum temperature, not the coldest night ever recorded.

If you looked up your zone before 2024, check again. About half the country moved to the next warmer half zone in this edition. The USDA's own scientists caution against reading that as a clean climate signal, because the new map also uses many more weather stations and better interpolation, so part of the shift is a better measurement rather than a warmer world.

USDA ARS news release, 15 November 2023, and the Plant Hardiness Zone Map "map creation" page. A footnote on precision: the news release says 13,412 stations and the technical page says 13,625. We are citing both rather than picking the tidier one.

Common herbs, by zone

Hardiness ranges from the NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox, read on 17 September 2026.

Two honest notes about this table. The Toolbox pages carry no publication or revision date, so the date above is the day we read them. And the lemon balm range, topping out at 7b, is narrower at the warm end than what is commonly published elsewhere; we found no second extension source to reconcile it, so treat it as one source rather than settled.

Rosemary is the one that catches people

At zone 8a and warmer it is a shrub in the ground. Colder than that it is a container plant that comes indoors before the first frost. The University of Wisconsin puts it plainly for northern gardeners: rosemary is generally only grown as a potted plant there, because it is winter hardy only to zone 8a.

There are two cultivars worth knowing if you are in zone 6 or 7 and stubborn: 'Arp' is described as hardy to zone 7a and potentially 6a with protection, and 'Madeline Hill', also sold as 'Hill Hardy', as surviving zone 7a or 6a in a protected site.

University of Wisconsin horticulture, rosemary, revised June 2026.

What the zone does not tell you

Cold hardiness is one variable and it is the one with a map. Four others decide as much:

• Summer heat and humidity. Lavender fails in the humid South for reasons that have nothing to do with winter.
• Drainage. Most of these plants tolerate cold far better than wet feet in February.
• Your own microclimate. A south wall, a slope and a windbreak can be worth half a zone.
• What the plant does once it is happy. Some of these spread hard enough to take the bed. That is a separate page: the herbs that take over.

And for when to actually put them out, the answer is your frost dates, not the calendar: how to find yours from NOAA.

Sources, with the date of each

• USDA ARS, updated Plant Hardiness Zone Map, released 15 November 2023, from 1991 to 2020 data.
• USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, map creation page, read 17 September 2026.
• NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox, individual plant pages, read 17 September 2026. The pages carry no date of their own.
• University of Wisconsin horticulture, rosemary, revised June 2026, and chamomile, revised May 2026.
• Utah State University Extension, English lavender in the garden, May 2020.

Not stated because we could not confirm it: a USDA zone range for German chamomile, and any "perennial in zone X, grown as an annual in zone Y" table beyond rosemary. No extension source we found makes that claim herb by herb, so we are not going to build it by inference.