One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of estimating when it's possible to plant lupine is to examine the USDA zone info for Clayton.

Planting Calendar for Lupine

Frost tolerance for lupine:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Since lupine are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant lupine in Clayton is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant lupine and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your lupine may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lupine indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Clayton. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 0°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Clayton is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Clayton you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your lupine if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Clayton

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Clayton

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