Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

By looking at the USDA zone info for Watertown it's a good idea to determine when you can plant gayfeather.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

Frost tolerance for gayfeather:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Gayfeather do ok in quite a bit of cold which means that you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Watertown 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 gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your gayfeather may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your gayfeather indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Watertown the average date of last frost happens on May 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -25°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Watertown is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Watertown last frost occurs after May 15 be ready to protect your gayfeather if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Watertown

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-25°F
Highest Expected Low	-20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -20°F.

Plants to Grow in Watertown

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