One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for Carbondale should be used to estimate 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.

Since gayfeather are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Carbondale 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 gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your gayfeather may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your gayfeather indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Carbondale. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Carbondale and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Carbondale you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your gayfeather in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Carbondale

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Carbondale

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