One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Mchenry you can figure out when it's a good idea to plant pansies by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Pansies

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

Pansies are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which tells us that you can plant them a quite a bit earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant pansies in Mchenry 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 pansies and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your pansies may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your pansies indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Mchenry is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Mchenry you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your pansies if you have one of those late frosts.

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.