One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

A way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant oenothera is to examine the USDA zone info for Lake Zurich.

Planting Calendar for Oenothera

Frost tolerance for oenothera:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Oenothera do well in moderate cold which tells us that you can get them planted earlier than other frost tender plants.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Lake Zurich. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Lake Zurich and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Lake Zurich it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your oenothera if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Lake Zurich

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 Zurich

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