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 can figure out when it's a good idea to plant tritoma in Winterset by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Tritoma

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

Since tritoma are very cold tolerant you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant tritoma in Winterset 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 tritoma and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your tritoma may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your tritoma indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Winterset the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You should expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Winterset is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Winterset you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so always be ready to cover your tritoma in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Winterset

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 Winterset

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