One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

You should be able to determine when it's the best time to plant sunflowers by looking at the USDA zone info for Monaca.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

Frost tolerance for sunflowers:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

It's probably not a good idea to plant sunflowers until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Monaca 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 sunflowers and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your sunflowers may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your sunflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Monaca the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Monaca is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Monaca it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your sunflowers if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Monaca

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 Monaca

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