When to Plant Dusty Miller in Ottawa, IL

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

You can figure out when it's a good idea to plant dusty miller in Ottawa by checking out the USDA zone info.


Planting Calendar for Dusty Miller

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

Dusty Miller 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 more sensitive plants.

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

The earliest that you can plant dusty miller in Ottawa 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 dusty miller and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your dusty miller may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your dusty miller indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Ottawa. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Ottawa is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Ottawa last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your dusty miller if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ottawa

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 Ottawa

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