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.

It's a good idea to determine when it's possible to plant penstemon by reviewing the USDA zone info for Dunellen.

Planting Calendar for Penstemon

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

Penstemon do well in moderate cold which means that you can get them planted earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant penstemon in Dunellen 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 penstemon and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your penstemon may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your penstemon indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Dunellen. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Dunellen is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Dunellen it frosts late in the year after April 15 so always be ready to protect your penstemon if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Dunellen

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

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

Plants to Grow in Dunellen

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