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 making a decision about when it's the best time to plant melampodium is to look at the USDA zone info for Forest Park.

Planting Calendar for Melampodium

Frost tolerance for melampodium:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

You should not plant melampodium until after all chance of frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant melampodium in Forest Park 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 melampodium and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your melampodium may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your melampodium indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on March 15 in Forest Park. You should expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Forest Park and it is different every year. Half of the time in Forest Park you get a frost after March 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your melampodium if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Forest Park

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

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

Plants to Grow in Forest Park

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Forest Park.