One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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 Normal can be used to determine when to plant cleome.

Planting Calendar for Cleome

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

It's probably not a good idea to plant cleome until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant cleome in Normal 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 cleome and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your cleome may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your cleome indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Normal may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Normal you get a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your cleome in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Normal

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 Normal

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