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 determining when it's a good idea to plant rudbeckia is to examine the USDA zone info for Westminster.

Planting Calendar for Rudbeckia

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

Rudbeckia do well in moderate cold which means that you can start planting them earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant rudbeckia in Westminster 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 rudbeckia and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your rudbeckia may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your rudbeckia indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Westminster. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 0°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Westminster is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Westminster you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your rudbeckia in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Westminster

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

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

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

Plants to Grow in Westminster

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