One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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.

A common way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant bleeding hearts is to examine the USDA zone info for East Alton.

Planting Calendar for Bleeding Hearts

Frost tolerance for bleeding hearts:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Since bleeding hearts are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant bleeding hearts in East Alton is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant bleeding hearts and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your bleeding hearts may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your bleeding hearts indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in East Alton. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for East Alton and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in East Alton there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your bleeding hearts in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for East Alton

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in East Alton

You may be interested in your other planting guides for East Alton.