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.

By looking at the USDA zone info for Cicero it's a good idea to estimate when it's possible to plant garden mums.

Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

Frost tolerance for garden mums:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Garden Mums do ok in mild cold which means that you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in Cicero 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 garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your garden mums may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your garden mums indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Cicero and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Cicero last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your garden mums in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Cicero

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 Cicero

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