Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. 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 Shippensburg can be looked at to figure out when you can plant sunflowers.

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 a bad idea to plant sunflowers until after the last frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Shippensburg 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. Starting your sunflowers indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Shippensburg. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Shippensburg is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Shippensburg last frost occurs after April 15 so always be ready to protect your sunflowers in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Shippensburg

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 Shippensburg

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