The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. 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 possible to plant cleome is to use the USDA zone info for Geneva.

Planting Calendar for Cleome

Frost tolerance for cleome:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

Since cleome require warm weather you really should wait until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant cleome in Geneva is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant cleome and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your cleome may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your cleome indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Geneva. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Geneva is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Geneva you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your cleome if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Geneva

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 Geneva

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