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

By using the USDA zone info for Gunnison it's a good idea to figure out when it's possible to plant gayfeather.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

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

Gayfeather are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which tells us that you can start planting them much earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Gunnison 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 gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your gayfeather may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your gayfeather indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on May 15 in Gunnison. It might get as low as -30°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Gunnison is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Gunnison it frosts late in the year after May 15 be ready to cover your gayfeather if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Gunnison

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-30°F
Highest Expected Low	-25°F

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

Plants to Grow in Gunnison

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