When to Plant Garden Mums in Evanston, IL

One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of estimating when it's a good idea to plant garden mums is to look at the USDA zone info for Evanston.


Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

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

Since garden mums do well in moderate cold you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

The earliest that you can plant garden mums 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 garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your garden mums may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your garden mums indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Evanston is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Evanston you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your garden mums if you have 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.