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.

The earliest that you can plant four-o-clock flower in Madison can be determined by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Four-o-clock flower

Frost tolerance for four-o-clock flower:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

Since four-o-clock flower require warm weather you must wait until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant four-o-clock flower in Madison 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 four-o-clock flower and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your four-o-clock flower may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your four-o-clock flower indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Madison. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Madison is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Madison you get surprised by a frost after March 15 be ready to cover your four-o-clock flower in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Madison

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°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 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Madison

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