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.

One way of estimating when you can plant lantana is to examine the USDA zone info for Helena.

Planting Calendar for Lantana

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

It's a bad idea to plant lantana until after the last frost because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant lantana in Helena is May. However, you really should wait until June if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant lantana and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your lantana may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lantana indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Helena the average date of last frost happens on May 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -25°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Helena is just an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Helena it frosts late in the year after May 15 be ready to protect your lantana if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Helena

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-25°F
Highest Expected Low	-20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -20°F.

Plants to Grow in Helena

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