One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

In Urbana you can determine when to plant garden mums by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

Frost tolerance for garden mums:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Garden Mums do well in a little bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in Urbana is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your garden mums may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your garden mums indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Urbana. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Always keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Urbana and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Urbana last frost occurs after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your garden mums if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Urbana

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 Urbana

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