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.

The best time to plant dusty miller in Rifle should be estimated by referring to the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Dusty Miller

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

Since dusty miller are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them much earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant dusty miller in Rifle 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 dusty miller and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your dusty miller may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your dusty miller indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Always keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Rifle and it is different every year. Since half of the time in Rifle it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your dusty miller if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Rifle

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 Rifle

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