When to Plant Nigella in Evanston, IL

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate 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.

You should be able to estimate when it's possible to plant nigella by looking at the USDA zone info for Evanston.


Planting Calendar for Nigella

Frost tolerance for nigella: Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant: Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Since nigella are very cold tolerant you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

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

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

Last Frost Date

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

Remember that USDA zone info for Evanston is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Evanston you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your nigella in the event of a surprise late frost.

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.