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

A common way of making a decision about when it's possible to plant pennyroyal is to examine the USDA zone info for Rockford.

Planting Calendar for Pennyroyal

Frost tolerance for pennyroyal:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Pennyroyal do well in cold weather which means that you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

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

Last Frost Date

In Rockford the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Rockford is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Rockford last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your pennyroyal if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rockford

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 Rockford

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