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 figure out when you can plant gayfeather by referring to the USDA zone info for Alpena.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

Frost tolerance for gayfeather:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Gayfeather do well in cold weather which tells us that you can plant them earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Alpena 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 gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your gayfeather may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your gayfeather indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Alpena is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Alpena it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your gayfeather if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Alpena

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 Alpena

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