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

The USDA zone info for Rochester should be reffered to in order to determine when it's possible to plant peonies.

Planting Calendar for Peonies

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

Peonies are barely cold tolerant which means that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than more sensitive plants.

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

Last Frost Date

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

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Rochester is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Rochester last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your peonies if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Rochester

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 Rochester

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