One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

A way of making a decision about when it's the best time to plant gomphrena is to consult the USDA zone info for Aurora.

Planting Calendar for Gomphrena

Frost tolerance for gomphrena:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Since gomphrena are barely cold tolerant you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant gomphrena in Aurora 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 gomphrena and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your gomphrena may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your gomphrena indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Aurora. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Aurora 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 Aurora last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your gomphrena if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Aurora

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

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

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

Plants to Grow in Aurora

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