Planting calendar
Planting Calendar: When to Plant, by Zone
When things go in the ground, not when they flower: a month-by-month planting year for each USDA hardiness zone, drawn from every plant in the library.
Pick your zone
The number beside each zone is how many of the library's plants have a planting window there across the year.
How this calendar is made
Derived from each plant's type, USDA hardiness zones and bloom months, crossed with each zone's typical frost dates, as stored in the BloomsEye library, which was written with AI assistance. Of these 1,785 plants, 723 have been checked against outside sources (112 fully verified); the rest have not been checked yet, and each plant's own page says which. The cards are AI-generated illustrations. Months here are Northern Hemisphere months; in the Southern Hemisphere, shift them by six months.
It is September: here is what goes in the ground now
September is a between-windows month in zone 9 and zone 10; each zone page shows when its planting picks back up.
Each zone page above walks the whole year. For every month it lists the perennials, shrubs and trees whose spring or fall window is open, the bulbs to plant, the cool-season annuals that go in as the soil opens, and the tender plants waiting on the last frost; the windows are derived from the zone's typical frost dates and each plant's own type and bloom season, so a plant only appears where and when it genuinely goes in the ground. Timing here is anchored to typical zone frost averages (NOAA 1991-2020 climate normals, as summarized in university extension frost tables). Your local dates can differ by several weeks, so confirm the last and first frost dates for your own area.
Planning what to see rather than what to do? The Bloom Calendar crosses the same zones with bloom months, so you can check what should be in flower while the new plantings settle in.
Design your garden
Drop plants onto a 3D plan, see how they fill in, and watch the whole garden bloom across the year.