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.

A common way of getting a good idea when it's a good idea to plant gayfeather is to use the USDA zone info for Colorado Springs.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

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

Gayfeather are very cold tolerant which means that you can plant them much earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Colorado Springs 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 gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your gayfeather may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your gayfeather indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Colorado Springs. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Colorado Springs is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Colorado Springs it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your gayfeather if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Colorado Springs

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Colorado Springs

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Colorado Springs.