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.

A common way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant sunflowers is to consult the USDA zone info for Shelton.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

Frost tolerance for sunflowers:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's probably not a good idea to plant sunflowers until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they require warm weather.

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

Last Frost Date

In Shelton the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Shelton may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Shelton last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your sunflowers in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Shelton

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Shelton

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