When to Plant Rock Cress in Lisle, IL

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.

It's a good idea to figure out when it's a good idea to plant rock cress by looking at the USDA zone info for Lisle.


Planting Calendar for Rock Cress

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

Rock Cress do ok in quite a bit of cold which means that you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

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

The earliest that you can plant rock cress in Lisle 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 rock cress and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your rock cress may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your rock cress indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Lisle. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Lisle is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Lisle it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your rock cress in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Lisle

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 Lisle

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