One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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.

The USDA zone info for Steger can be looked at to determine when it's the best time to plant delphinium.

Planting Calendar for Delphinium

Frost tolerance for delphinium:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

You can plant delphinium a bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant delphinium in Steger is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant delphinium and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your delphinium may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your delphinium indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Steger. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Steger is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Steger last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your delphinium if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Steger

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 Steger

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