One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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.

A common way of making a decision about when to plant platycodon is to check out the USDA zone info for Oil City.

Planting Calendar for Platycodon

Frost tolerance for platycodon:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Since platycodon do ok in moderate cold you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant platycodon in Oil City 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 platycodon and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your platycodon may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your platycodon indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Oil City. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Oil City is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Oil City you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your platycodon in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Oil City

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 Oil City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Oil City.