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.

In Rifle you can figure out when you can plant mecardonia by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Mecardonia

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

Mecardonia require warm weather which means that you have 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 mecardonia in Rifle is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Rifle. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost may not be accurate from year to year because it is based on the USDA zone info for Rifle and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Rifle you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your mecardonia 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.