One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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 common way of determining when it's a good idea to plant banana is to use the USDA zone info for Mchenry.

Planting Calendar for Banana

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

Since banana are not cold tolerant you have to wait until after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

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

Last Frost Date

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

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Mchenry is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Mchenry you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your banana in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Mchenry

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 Mchenry

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