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When to Plant Strawflowers in Cortland, NY

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.

A common way of determining when it's a good idea to plant strawflowers is to consult the USDA zone info for Cortland.


Planting Calendar for Strawflowers

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

Since strawflowers are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant strawflowers
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant strawflowers
Probably not a good time to plant strawflowers

The earliest that you can plant strawflowers in Cortland 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 strawflowers and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your strawflowers may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your strawflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Cortland and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Cortland you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your strawflowers in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Cortland

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 Cortland

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