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.

A common way of figuring out when you can plant garden mums is to look at the USDA zone info for Cary.

Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

Frost tolerance for garden mums:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Garden Mums are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which means that you can start planting them earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in Cary 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 garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your garden mums may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your garden mums indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Cary. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Cary is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Cary you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your garden mums if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Cary

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 Cary

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