When to Plant Bougainvillea in Oak Forest, IL

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 first opportunity to plant bougainvillea in Oak Forest can be figured out by checking out the USDA zone info.


Planting Calendar for Bougainvillea

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

Bougainvillea require warm weather which tells us that you need to wait until it warms up after the last frost has passed before you can plant them.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant bougainvillea
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant bougainvillea
Probably not a good time to plant bougainvillea

The earliest that you can plant bougainvillea in Oak Forest 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 bougainvillea and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your bougainvillea may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your bougainvillea indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Oak Forest. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Oak Forest is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Oak Forest it frosts late in the year after April 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your bougainvillea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Oak Forest

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 Oak Forest

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Oak Forest.