One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

A common way of determining when it's the best time to plant mimulus is to check out the USDA zone info for Dayton.

Planting Calendar for Mimulus

Frost tolerance for mimulus:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

Since mimulus require warm weather it's important to wait until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant mimulus in Dayton is May. However, you really should wait until June if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant mimulus and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your mimulus may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your mimulus indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Remember that USDA zone info for Dayton is an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Dayton you get a frost after May 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your mimulus in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Dayton

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 Dayton

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