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

A common way of determining when it's a good idea to plant lupine is to check out the USDA zone info for Sauk Rapids.

Planting Calendar for Lupine

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

Since lupine are moderately cold tolerant you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant lupine in Sauk Rapids 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 lupine and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your lupine may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lupine indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on May 15 in Sauk Rapids. You should expect an average low temperature of -30°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Sauk Rapids is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Sauk Rapids there is a last frost after May 15 be ready to cover your lupine in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Sauk Rapids

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-30°F
Highest Expected Low	-25°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -25°F.

Plants to Grow in Sauk Rapids

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Sauk Rapids.