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.

One way of making a decision about when to plant strawflowers is to check out the USDA zone info for Alsip.

Planting Calendar for Strawflowers

Frost tolerance for strawflowers:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Strawflowers do ok in moderate cold which means that you can start planting them slightly earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant strawflowers in Alsip is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant strawflowers and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your strawflowers may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your strawflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Alsip. You should expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Alsip is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Alsip you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your strawflowers if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Alsip

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Alsip

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