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.

You can determine when to plant strawflowers in Mentor by checking out the USDA zone info.

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.

Since strawflowers do ok in moderate cold you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant strawflowers in Mentor 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. Any later than that and your strawflowers may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your strawflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Mentor. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Mentor may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Mentor last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your strawflowers in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Mentor

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 Mentor

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