One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant monkey flower is to use the USDA zone info for Rock Falls.

Planting Calendar for Monkey Flower

Frost tolerance for monkey flower:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

Monkey Flower are not cold tolerant which means that it is important to wait until it warms up after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant monkey flower in Rock Falls 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 monkey flower and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your monkey flower may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your monkey flower indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Rock Falls. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Rock Falls and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Rock Falls it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your monkey flower if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rock Falls

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 Rock Falls

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Rock Falls.