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.

The USDA zone info for Markham can be reffered to in order to figure out when it's possible to plant gayfeather.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

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

Gayfeather are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which means that you can plant them much earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Markham 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 grow to maturity. Starting your gayfeather indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Markham. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Markham may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Markham you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your gayfeather if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Markham

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 Markham

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