One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 possible to plant gaillardia is to use the USDA zone info for Butler.

Planting Calendar for Gaillardia

Frost tolerance for gaillardia:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Gaillardia tend to make it in mild cold which means that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant gaillardia in Butler 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 gaillardia and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your gaillardia may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your gaillardia indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Butler. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Butler is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Butler you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your gaillardia if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Butler

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Butler

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