Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. 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 to plant melampodium in Carol Stream by referring to the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Melampodium

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

Melampodium require warm weather which means that you must wait until it warms up after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant melampodium in Carol Stream 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 melampodium and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your melampodium may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your melampodium indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Carol Stream is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Carol Stream last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your melampodium in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Carol Stream

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 Carol Stream

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Carol Stream.