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.

By using the USDA zone info for Lima it's a good idea to determine when you can plant strawflowers.

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 do ok in moderate cold which tells us that you can plant them slightly earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant strawflowers in Lima 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your strawflowers may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your strawflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Lima. You should expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Lima is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Lima it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your strawflowers in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Lima

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 Lima

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