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

One way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant impatiens is to examine the USDA zone info for Minneapolis.

Planting Calendar for Impatiens

Frost tolerance for impatiens:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

It's a bad idea to plant impatiens until after all chance of frost has passed because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant impatiens in Minneapolis 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 impatiens and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your impatiens may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your impatiens indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Minneapolis the average date of last frost happens on May 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -25°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Minneapolis is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Minneapolis it frosts late in the year after May 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your impatiens in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Minneapolis

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 Minneapolis

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