Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of figuring out when it's possible to plant cuphea is to examine the USDA zone info for Mchenry.

Planting Calendar for Cuphea

Frost tolerance for cuphea:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

Since cuphea require warm weather you really should wait until after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant cuphea 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 cuphea and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your cuphea may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your cuphea indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Mchenry. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Mchenry is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Mchenry it frosts late in the year after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your cuphea in the event of a surprise 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.