One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Franklin you can estimate when it's the best time to plant balloon flower by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Balloon Flower

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

Since balloon flower are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant balloon flower in Franklin 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 balloon flower and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your balloon flower may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your balloon flower indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Franklin. You should expect an average low temperature of 0°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Franklin is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Franklin it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your balloon flower in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Franklin

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Franklin

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