One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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.

By checking out the USDA zone info for Ionia it's a good idea to figure out when you can plant painted tongues.

Planting Calendar for Painted Tongues

Frost tolerance for painted tongues:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

It's probably not a good idea to plant painted tongues until after all chance of frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant painted tongues in Ionia 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 painted tongues and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your painted tongues may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your painted tongues indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Ionia. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Ionia is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Ionia last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your painted tongues if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ionia

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 Ionia

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