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 can figure out when you can plant melampodium in Darien by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Melampodium

Frost tolerance for melampodium:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

It's not a good idea to plant melampodium until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant melampodium in Darien 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your melampodium may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your melampodium indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Darien. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Darien is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Darien you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your melampodium in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Darien

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 Darien

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