One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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 will be able to determine when you can plant cosmos by looking at the USDA zone info for Lake Villa.

Planting Calendar for Cosmos

Frost tolerance for cosmos:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Cosmos tend to make it in some cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant cosmos in Lake Villa is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant cosmos and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your cosmos may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your cosmos indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Lake Villa the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Lake Villa is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Lake Villa last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your cosmos if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Lake Villa

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 Lake Villa

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Lake Villa.