One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

A way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant columbine is to look at the USDA zone info for Fort Atkinson.

Planting Calendar for Columbine

Frost tolerance for columbine:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

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

The earliest that you can plant columbine in Fort Atkinson is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant columbine and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your columbine may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your columbine indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Fort Atkinson the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Fort Atkinson is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Fort Atkinson last frost occurs after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your columbine in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Fort Atkinson

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Fort Atkinson

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Fort Atkinson.