When to Plant Borage in Evanston, IL

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. 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 Evanston can be reffered to in order to figure out when to plant borage.


Planting Calendar for Borage

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

Since borage are moderately cold tolerant you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant borage
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant borage
Probably not a good time to plant borage

The earliest that you can plant borage in Evanston 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 borage and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your borage may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your borage indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Evanston the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Evanston is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Evanston it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your borage in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Evanston

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 Evanston

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