The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule. 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 you can plant garden mums is to look at the USDA zone info for Iowa City.

Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

Frost tolerance for garden mums:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Garden Mums do ok in a little bit of cold which means that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant garden mums 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 garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your garden mums may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your garden mums indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Iowa City. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Iowa City is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Iowa City it frosts late in the year after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your garden mums if you have one of those late frosts.

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.