Growing Winter Savory: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · August 10, 2026
Winter savory is the perennial half of the savory family, a low, woody-based plant with a sharper, more resinous flavor than annual summer savory. The trade for that stronger flavor is a plant that survives winter outdoors in zones 4-8, coming back on its own rather than needing to be sown fresh every spring.
Starting it
Start indoors 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost, tamping seed lightly into the mix or sowing it shallowly, since light helps germination. Transplant once seedlings have four true leaves, setting them out after the last frost. Germination takes 7 to 14 days. Space plants 8 inches apart in rows 12 to 18 inches apart; mature plants stay compact at 6 to 12 inches tall.
Cut back in fall, pinch in spring
Because it’s a perennial, winter savory benefits from a cutback in fall and pinching new growth in spring, which keeps it full and bushy rather than woody and sparse over the years. Leaf harvest can start once plants reach about 6 inches tall; flowers, if you’re after them, begin blooming roughly 90 days after planting.
Drying and storage
For a fall harvest meant for drying, cut plants near ground level and dry them away from direct sunlight before stripping the leaves from the now-woody stems. Established plants can also be propagated by root division in fall or spring, a faster route to more plants than starting again from seed.
Winter savory has no well-established companion pairings, and nothing it needs to be kept away from. As a genuine perennial, give it a permanent spot in the Garden Designer rather than planning to rotate it out each season.
Source: Winter Savory: Key Growing Information, Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
Companion planting guide for Winter Savory · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 4-8. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Mature height: 0.5-1 ft
Method: Start indoors: Start indoors from seed, then transplant outside. It needs a head start most zones can't give it by direct-sowing alone.
When to plant winter savory, by zone
Every zone winter savory grows in. Pick your zone in the header and it will be highlighted here. Each zone links to its full page.
| Zone | Start indoors | Sow or plant out | Harvest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4a & 4b | Mar 27–Apr 3 | May 22–May 29 | Aug 20–Aug 27 |
| 5a & 5b | Mar 22–Mar 29 | May 17–May 24 | Aug 15–Aug 22 |
| 6a & 6b | Mar 7–Mar 14 | May 2–May 9 | Jul 31–Aug 7 |
| 7a & 7b | Feb 20–Feb 27 | Apr 17–Apr 24 | Jul 16–Jul 23 |
| 8a & 8b | Feb 4–Feb 11 | Apr 1–Apr 8 | Jun 30–Jul 7 |
Harvest dates are about 90 days after the sow or plant-out date, not after starting seeds indoors.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Winter Savory plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 4 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 0.5-1 ft.
Varieties worth considering
- Straight-species winter savory (Satureja montana): Johnny's Selected Seeds sells it as the plain species; there's no real named-cultivar market. The species itself is the point, a different, hardier plant from annual summer savory, not two names for the same herb. (source)
Why each variety is listed comes from the source shown next to it. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement. The buy links are separate from those sources: they go to seed suppliers that sell that exact variety, and we may earn a commission on some of them.
Where to buy winter savory seeds
None of the seed suppliers we list carries winter savory seeds right now. A local garden center or a specialty seed house is the place to look.
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing winter savory" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Winter Savory: The perennial half of the savory family, sharper and woodier than summer savory, and it survives outdoors instead of needing to be resown every year.
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