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.

It's possible to determine when you can plant garden mums by referring to the USDA zone info for Melrose.

Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

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

Garden Mums do well in some cold which tells us that you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in Melrose 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 garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your garden mums may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your garden mums indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Melrose. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Melrose is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Melrose last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your garden mums if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Melrose

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 Melrose

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