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.

The first opportunity to plant red hot pokers in Madison can be figured out by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Red Hot Pokers

Frost tolerance for red hot pokers:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Since red hot pokers are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them much earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant red hot pokers in Madison 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 red hot pokers and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your red hot pokers may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your red hot pokers indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Madison. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Madison is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Madison last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your red hot pokers if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Madison

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Madison

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