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

A way of making a decision about when it's possible to plant zinnia is to refer to the USDA zone info for Whiting.

Planting Calendar for Zinnia

Frost tolerance for zinnia:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

It's a bad idea to plant zinnia until after the last frost because they require warm weather.

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

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Whiting. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Whiting is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Whiting you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your zinnia in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Whiting

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 Whiting

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