One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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.

In Marion you can figure out when it's the best time to plant borage by reviewing the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Borage

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

Borage are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which means that you can plant them earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant borage in Marion 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 borage and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your borage may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your borage 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 Marion. You can expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Marion and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Marion it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your borage if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Marion

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 Marion

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