One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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.

You should be able to determine when it's the best time to plant sunflowers by looking at the USDA zone info for Franklin.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

Frost tolerance for sunflowers:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's a bad idea to plant sunflowers until after the last frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Franklin 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 sunflowers and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your sunflowers may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your sunflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Franklin. You should expect an average low temperature of 20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Franklin is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Franklin it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to protect your sunflowers if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Franklin

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	20°F
Highest Expected Low	25°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 25°F.

Plants to Grow in Franklin

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