When to Plant Spearmint in Vernon Hills, IL

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out 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 common way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant spearmint is to examine the USDA zone info for Vernon Hills.


Planting Calendar for Spearmint

Frost tolerance for spearmint: Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant: Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Spearmint do well in pretty solid cold which means that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant spearmint
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant spearmint
Probably not a good time to plant spearmint

The earliest that you can plant spearmint in Vernon Hills is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant spearmint and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your spearmint may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your spearmint indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Vernon Hills the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Vernon Hills is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Vernon Hills last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your spearmint if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Vernon Hills

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 Vernon Hills

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Vernon Hills.