One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

The first opportunity to plant begonias in Braidwood can be estimated by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Begonias

Frost tolerance for begonias:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's probably a bad idea to plant begonias until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant begonias in Braidwood 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 begonias and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your begonias may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your begonias indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Braidwood. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Braidwood is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Braidwood you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your begonias if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Braidwood

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 Braidwood

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