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.

The first opportunity to plant sunflowers in Gering should be estimated by looking at 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.

You can not plant sunflowers until after all chance of frost has passed because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Gering 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your sunflowers may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your sunflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Gering the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You should expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Gering is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Gering last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your sunflowers in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Gering

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Gering

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