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.

The USDA zone info for Dowagiac can be looked at to determine when you can plant calibrachoa.

Planting Calendar for Calibrachoa

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

Since calibrachoa are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant calibrachoa in Dowagiac 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 calibrachoa and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your calibrachoa may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your calibrachoa indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Remember that USDA zone info for Dowagiac is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Dowagiac it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your calibrachoa in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Dowagiac

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 Dowagiac

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