One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 USDA zone info for Elmira should be reffered to in order to estimate when you can plant cleome.

Planting Calendar for Cleome

Frost tolerance for cleome:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

Cleome are not cold tolerant which tells us that you must wait until it warms up after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant cleome in Elmira 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 cleome and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your cleome may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your cleome indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Elmira. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Elmira is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Elmira it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your cleome if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Elmira

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Elmira

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