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 making a decision about when to plant cleome is to consult the USDA zone info for Cape Girardeau.

Planting Calendar for Cleome

Frost tolerance for cleome:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

Cleome are not cold tolerant which tells us that you really should wait until it warms up after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant cleome in Cape Girardeau is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant cleome and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your cleome may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your cleome indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Cape Girardeau. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Cape Girardeau is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Cape Girardeau you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your cleome if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Cape Girardeau

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Cape Girardeau

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Cape Girardeau.