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.

A common way of figuring out when it's possible to plant alyssum is to use the USDA zone info for Pekin.

Planting Calendar for Alyssum

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

Alyssum can survive in quite a bit of cold which means that you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

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

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Pekin is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Pekin you get a frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your alyssum if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Pekin

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 Pekin

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