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 should be able to estimate when you can plant hollyhocks by referring to the USDA zone info for Northampton.

Planting Calendar for Hollyhocks

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

Hollyhocks are moderately cold tolerant which means that you can plant them earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Northampton. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Northampton may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Northampton there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to protect your hollyhocks if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Northampton

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 Northampton

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