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.

It's a good idea to figure out when it's possible to plant gayfeather by looking at the USDA zone info for Austin.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

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

Since gayfeather are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Austin 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 gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your gayfeather may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your gayfeather indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on May 15 in Austin. It might get as low as -25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Austin is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Austin there is a last frost after May 15 be ready to cover your gayfeather if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Austin

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-25°F
Highest Expected Low	-20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -20°F.

Plants to Grow in Austin

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