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.

One way of determining when it's the best time to plant black eyed susans is to check out the USDA zone info for Bloomington.

Planting Calendar for Black Eyed Susans

Frost tolerance for black eyed susans:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's probably a bad idea to plant black eyed susans until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant black eyed susans in Bloomington 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 black eyed susans and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your black eyed susans may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your black eyed susans indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Bloomington. You should expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Bloomington may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Bloomington you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your black eyed susans in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Bloomington

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

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

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

Plants to Grow in Bloomington

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