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.

In Chapel Hill you can determine when it's possible to plant sunflowers by referring to the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

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

Sunflowers are not cold tolerant which means that you must wait until it warms up after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Chapel Hill 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 sunflowers and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your sunflowers may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your sunflowers indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Chapel Hill. You can expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost may not be accurate from year to year because it is based on the USDA zone info for Chapel Hill and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Chapel Hill you get a frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your sunflowers if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Chapel Hill

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

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

Plants to Grow in Chapel Hill

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Chapel Hill.