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

A common way of estimating when it's possible to plant sunflowers is to look at the USDA zone info for Rochelle.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

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

You should not plant sunflowers until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Rochelle 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 sunflowers and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your sunflowers may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your sunflowers indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Rochelle. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Rochelle is an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Rochelle you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your sunflowers in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Rochelle

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Rochelle

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