One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 you can plant creeping phlox is to refer to the USDA zone info for Andover.

Planting Calendar for Creeping Phlox

Frost tolerance for creeping phlox:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Since creeping phlox do well in cold you can plant them much earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant creeping phlox in Andover 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 creeping phlox and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your creeping phlox may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your creeping phlox 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 Andover. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Andover is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Andover it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your creeping phlox in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Andover

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Andover

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