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 making a decision about when it's the best time to plant red hot pokers is to look at the USDA zone info for Rochester.

Planting Calendar for Red Hot Pokers

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

You can plant red hot pokers earlier in the year because they are very cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant red hot pokers in Rochester 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 red hot pokers and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your red hot pokers may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your red hot pokers indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on May 15 in Rochester. You should expect an average low temperature of -25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Rochester may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Rochester it frosts late in the year after May 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your red hot pokers if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rochester

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 Rochester

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