When to Plant Lavender Cotton in Riverside, IL

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of estimating when it's a good idea to plant lavender cotton is to refer to the USDA zone info for Riverside.


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 tend to make it in cold weather which tells us that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

The earliest that you can plant lavender cotton in Riverside 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 really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lavender cotton indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Riverside. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Riverside and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Riverside last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your lavender cotton in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Riverside

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-10°F
Highest Expected Low-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Riverside

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