One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate 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.

The USDA zone info for Ottawa should be reffered to in order to figure out when it's a good idea to plant lavender cotton.

Planting Calendar for Lavender Cotton

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

Lavender Cotton do well in cold which means that you can plant them much earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant lavender cotton 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 lavender cotton and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your lavender cotton may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your lavender cotton indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Ottawa is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Ottawa last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your lavender cotton in the event of 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.