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.

A common way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant coreopsis is to examine the USDA zone info for Lansing.

Planting Calendar for Coreopsis

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

Since coreopsis are moderately cold tolerant you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant coreopsis in Lansing 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 coreopsis and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your coreopsis may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your coreopsis indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Lansing. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Lansing 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 Lansing it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your coreopsis if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Lansing

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 Lansing

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