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.

You will be able to estimate when it's possible to plant cuphea by checking out the USDA zone info for Carterville.

Planting Calendar for Cuphea

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

Cuphea require warm weather which means that you really should wait until it warms up after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant cuphea in Carterville 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 cuphea and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your cuphea may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your cuphea 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 Carterville. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Carterville is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Carterville you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your cuphea in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Carterville

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Carterville

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