When to Plant Petunias in Dearborn, MI

Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. 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 to plant petunias is to look at the USDA zone info for Dearborn.


Planting Calendar for Petunias

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

You can plant petunias just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant petunias
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant petunias
Probably not a good time to plant petunias

The earliest that you can plant petunias in Dearborn 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 petunias and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your petunias may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your petunias indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Dearborn the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Dearborn may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Dearborn it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your petunias in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Dearborn

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 Low0°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 Dearborn

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