One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Lombard you can figure out when it's a good idea to plant chinese celery by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Chinese celery

Frost tolerance for chinese celery:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Since chinese celery do ok in moderate cold you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant chinese celery in Lombard is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant chinese celery and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your chinese celery may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your chinese celery indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Lombard. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Lombard is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Lombard it frosts late in the year after April 15 so always be ready to protect your chinese celery if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Lombard

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Lombard

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Lombard.