One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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.

A common way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant hardy asters is to look at the USDA zone info for Mountainside.

Planting Calendar for Hardy Asters

Frost tolerance for hardy asters:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Hardy Asters are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant hardy asters in Mountainside is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant hardy asters and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your hardy asters may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your hardy asters indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Mountainside the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of 0°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Mountainside is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Mountainside there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your hardy asters if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Mountainside

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 Mountainside

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