When to Plant Gayfeather in Forest Park, 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 zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of getting a good idea when to plant gayfeather is to examine the USDA zone info for Forest Park.


Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

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

Gayfeather do ok in quite a bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

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

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Forest Park 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 gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your gayfeather may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your gayfeather indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Forest Park. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Forest Park is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Forest Park last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your gayfeather if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Forest Park

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 Forest Park

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Forest Park.