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.

The USDA zone info for Decatur can be reffered to in order to determine when to plant columbine.

Planting Calendar for Columbine

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

You can plant columbine a little bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant columbine in Decatur 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 columbine and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your columbine may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your columbine indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Decatur. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Decatur is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Decatur you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your columbine in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Decatur

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 Decatur

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