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.

A common way of making a decision about when it's possible to plant ornamental grasses is to examine the USDA zone info for Allegan.

Planting Calendar for Ornamental Grasses

Frost tolerance for ornamental grasses:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Ornamental Grasses are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather which means that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant ornamental grasses in Allegan 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 ornamental grasses and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your ornamental grasses may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your ornamental grasses indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Allegan. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Allegan is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Allegan it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your ornamental grasses in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Allegan

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 Allegan

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