The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of determining when to plant catharanthus is to refer to the USDA zone info for Mahomet.

Planting Calendar for Catharanthus

Frost tolerance for catharanthus:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's a bad idea to plant catharanthus until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant catharanthus in Mahomet 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 catharanthus and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your catharanthus may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your catharanthus indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Mahomet may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Mahomet last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your catharanthus if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Mahomet

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 Mahomet

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