One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

A common way of determining when it's the best time to plant larkspur is to refer to the USDA zone info for West Chester.

Planting Calendar for Larkspur

Frost tolerance for larkspur:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Larkspur are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which means that you can plant them much earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant larkspur in West Chester 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 larkspur and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your larkspur may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your larkspur indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in West Chester. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for West Chester is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in West Chester it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your larkspur if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for West Chester

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 West Chester

You may be interested in your other planting guides for West Chester.