When to Plant Garden Mums in Kalamazoo, 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 way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant garden mums is to examine the USDA zone info for Kalamazoo.


Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

Frost tolerance for garden mums: Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant: Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Garden Mums are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which tells us that you can plant them earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

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

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in Kalamazoo 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 garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your garden mums may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your garden mums indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Kalamazoo the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You should expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Kalamazoo and it is different every year. Since half of the time in Kalamazoo you get a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your garden mums if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Kalamazoo

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-10°F
Highest Expected Low-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Kalamazoo

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