One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the 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 figuring out when it's a good idea to plant sunflowers is to examine the USDA zone info for Tuscola.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

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

It's probably not a good idea to plant sunflowers until after the last frost because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Tuscola 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your sunflowers may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your sunflowers indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Tuscola is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Tuscola last frost occurs after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your sunflowers if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Tuscola

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 Tuscola

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