One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The first opportunity to plant cleome in South Portland can be estimated by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Cleome

Frost tolerance for cleome:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

You should not plant cleome until after the last frost because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant cleome in South Portland is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant cleome and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your cleome may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your cleome indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in South Portland. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for South Portland may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in South Portland last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your cleome if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for South Portland

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in South Portland

You may be interested in your other planting guides for South Portland.