Lemongrass goes in when the soil hits about 20°C and the frosts have finished, which for most of Australia means spring through early summer. I plant mine in October. One $4 clump turns into a knee-high cluster I can cut from for years, and at $3 a small supermarket bunch, I reckon it pays for itself by the second harvest.
Here’s the catch most guides skip: lemongrass is a tropical grass, not a herb you treat like basil. It hates cold feet and it sulks below 13°C. So the “when” depends entirely on your zone, and getting it wrong by a month is the difference between a clump that takes off and one that’s sitting there doing nothing until Christmas.
The one rule that matters
Wait for warm soil, not a warm afternoon. I learned this the slow way. A mild week in August fooled me into planting early once, and the clump just sat sulking for six weeks while the soil was still cold underneath. Lemongrass roots want soil at 20°C or warmer to push new growth. If you can comfortably leave your hand flat on the bed at 8am, it’s warm enough. If it feels cool, wait.
That single check beats any calendar date, because spring arrives at different times across the country.
When to plant lemongrass by zone
Same plant, very different timing depending where you garden. I write for the whole country, so find your zone.
- Tropical (Cairns, Darwin, Townsville): plant any time in the dry season, roughly April to November. You have it easy. Lemongrass is basically a weed for you, and I mean that as a compliment. Avoid the peak wet only because the new divisions can rot before they root.
- Subtropical (Brisbane, northern NSW, Perth coastal): September to December is my window. I get mine in by October so it bulks up before the summer heat. It will run right through to autumn.
- Warm temperate (Sydney, Adelaide, Perth): wait for October to November, once nights stay above 12°C. I wouldn’t rush it. A fortnight of patience saves you a month of sulking.
- Cool temperate (Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra, the tablelands): November to December is your only safe slot, after the last frost. Grow it in a big pot you can drag against a north wall, or under cover. I treat it as a warm-season annual down here and lift a division indoors over winter.
Not sure which zone you are in? My Plant Now tool sets your zone from your postcode and tells you what is worth planting this month, lemongrass included when its window opens.
How I plant it
Lemongrass is grown from divisions, not seed, which makes it one of the cheapest crops I know.
- Buy one healthy clump from a nursery, or root a fresh supermarket stalk in a glass of water on the windowsill until it shoots white roots, usually two to three weeks.
- Plant into full sun, in soil I have loosened a spade deep. It wants drainage, not a swamp.
- Space clumps 60cm apart. They get bigger than people expect, mine reach a metre across in a good year.
- Water it in well, then keep it damp for the first month while it settles. After that it shrugs off dry spells.
A handful of blood and bone at planting is all the feed I bother with for the first season. If you are brand new to all this, my step-by-step user guide walks you through setting up a bed and logging your first crop.
What it costs versus what it returns
This is the part I like. A single nursery clump runs about $4 to $6. A supermarket bunch of three or four stalks is around $3 and you’ve used it in a week. One established clump gives me a steady cut of stalks from summer right through autumn, year after year, because it’s a perennial in the warmer zones. I haven’t bought lemongrass in three years.
If you want the longer growing detail, varieties, and companion notes, I keep the full veggie growing guides sorted by climate zone.
Keep it going
Cut stalks from the outside of the clump at ground level, never the middle. Divide the whole thing every two or three years in spring to keep it vigorous, and you have free plants to spread around or hand to a neighbour. In the cold zones, lift a division into a pot before the first frost and it will tick over on a sunny sill until spring.
Lemongrass is the kind of crop that makes growing your own feel obvious. Cheap to start, hard to kill in the right zone, and useful in the kitchen all summer. If you want me to track yours alongside your other crops and tell you when to cut, divide and feed, that is exactly what Garden Buddy does. Plant the clump this spring, and by autumn you will wonder why you ever paid for a bunch.
