One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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 figuring out when it's possible to plant strawflowers is to refer to the USDA zone info for University Park.

Planting Calendar for Strawflowers

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

You can plant strawflowers just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant strawflowers in University Park 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 strawflowers and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your strawflowers may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your strawflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in University Park. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 5°F.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for University Park and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in University Park last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your strawflowers if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for University Park

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

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

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

Plants to Grow in University Park

You may be interested in your other planting guides for University Park.