When to Plant Purple Rock Cress in Rainbow City, AL

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

It's a good idea to determine when it's possible to plant purple rock cress by using the USDA zone info for Rainbow City.


Planting Calendar for Purple Rock Cress

Frost tolerance for purple rock cress: Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant: Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Purple Rock Cress are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which means that you can get them planted much earlier than more sensitive plants.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant purple rock cress
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant purple rock cress
Probably not a good time to plant purple rock cress

The earliest that you can plant purple rock cress in Rainbow City 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 purple rock cress and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your purple rock cress may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your purple rock cress indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Rainbow City. You can 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 can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Rainbow City you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your purple rock cress if you have 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 Low5°F
Highest Expected Low10°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.