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.

One way of making a decision about when it's the best time to plant melampodium is to examine the USDA zone info for Rainbow City.

Planting Calendar for Melampodium

Frost tolerance for melampodium:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

You can not plant melampodium until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant melampodium in Rainbow City is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant melampodium and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your melampodium may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your melampodium indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Rainbow City. You should expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Rainbow City is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Rainbow City it frosts late in the year after April 15 so always be ready to protect your melampodium in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rainbow City

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 Rainbow City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Rainbow City.