Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

It's a good idea to estimate when it's the best time to plant columbine by checking out the USDA zone info for Lake Station.

Planting Calendar for Columbine

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

Columbine are moderately cold tolerant which tells us that you can plant them a little bit earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant columbine in Lake Station 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 columbine and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your columbine may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your columbine indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Lake Station. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Lake Station is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Lake Station you get a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your columbine if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Lake Station

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 Lake Station

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Lake Station.