Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant sunflowers is to check out the USDA zone info for Exeter.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

Frost tolerance for sunflowers:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

Sunflowers are not cold tolerant which tells us that you need to wait until it warms up after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Exeter is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant sunflowers and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your sunflowers may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your sunflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Exeter. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Exeter is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Exeter last frost occurs after February 15 so just be sure to be ready to cover your sunflowers if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Exeter

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Exeter

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