One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 making a decision about when you can plant strawflowers is to examine the USDA zone info for Raritan.

Planting Calendar for Strawflowers

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

Strawflowers are barely cold tolerant which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant strawflowers in Raritan 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 strawflowers and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your strawflowers may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your strawflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Raritan. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Raritan is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Raritan it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your strawflowers in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Raritan

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 Raritan

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