One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 estimating when to plant gayfeather is to look at the USDA zone info for Waterloo.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

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

Gayfeather are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which means that you can get them planted much earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Waterloo 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 gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your gayfeather may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your gayfeather indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Waterloo. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Waterloo and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Waterloo you get a frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your gayfeather if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Waterloo

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 Waterloo

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