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 way of estimating when it's a good idea to plant garden mums is to consult the USDA zone info for Marshall.

Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

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

Since garden mums are moderately cold tolerant you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in Marshall 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 garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably August. 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

On average the last frost has passed is on May 15 in Marshall. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -25°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Marshall is an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Marshall last frost occurs after May 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your garden mums if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Marshall

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 Marshall

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