One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You will be able to estimate when it's a good idea to plant aurinia by checking out the USDA zone info for Iowa City.

Planting Calendar for Aurinia

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

Since aurinia are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant aurinia in Iowa City 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 aurinia and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your aurinia may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your aurinia indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Iowa City. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Iowa City is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Iowa City it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your aurinia in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Iowa City

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 Iowa City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Iowa City.