One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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 figuring out when it's possible to plant gayfeather is to refer to the USDA zone info for Kankakee.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

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

Gayfeather are very cold tolerant which means that you can plant them much earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Kankakee 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. Any later than that and your gayfeather may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your gayfeather indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Kankakee is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Kankakee there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your gayfeather in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Kankakee

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 Kankakee

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