When to Plant Sunflowers in Perry, IA

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out 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.

In Perry you can determine when to plant sunflowers by looking at the USDA zone info.


Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

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

It's not a good idea to plant sunflowers until after the last frost has passed because they do not do well in cold weather.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant sunflowers
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant sunflowers
Probably not a good time to plant sunflowers

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Perry 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your sunflowers may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your sunflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Perry. It might get as low as -20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Perry is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Perry you get a frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your sunflowers in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Perry

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-20°F
Highest Expected Low-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Perry

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