One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

One way of getting a good idea when it's the best time to plant strawflowers is to look at the USDA zone info for Portage.

Planting Calendar for Strawflowers

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

Strawflowers are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather which means that you can plant them slightly earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant strawflowers in Portage 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 strawflowers and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your strawflowers may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your strawflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Portage. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Portage is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Portage it frosts late in the year after April 15 so always be ready to protect your strawflowers in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Portage

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 Portage

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