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.

A way of making a decision about when you can plant elephant ears is to look at the USDA zone info for Hillsboro.

Planting Calendar for Elephant Ears

Frost tolerance for elephant ears:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

It's probably a bad idea to plant elephant ears until after the last frost because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant elephant ears in Hillsboro 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 elephant ears and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your elephant ears may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your elephant ears indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Hillsboro. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Hillsboro is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Hillsboro you get a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your elephant ears in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Hillsboro

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 Hillsboro

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