One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 determining when to plant iresene is to consult the USDA zone info for Madison.

Planting Calendar for Iresene

Frost tolerance for iresene:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

It's probably a bad idea to plant iresene until after all chance of frost has passed because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant iresene 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 iresene and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your iresene may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your iresene 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 should 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 can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Madison there is a last frost after March 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your iresene if you have a 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.