One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

The USDA zone info for Rapid City should be reffered to in order to determine when it's a good idea to plant strawflowers.

Planting Calendar for Strawflowers

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

Strawflowers are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Rapid City. You should expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Rapid City is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Rapid City it frosts late in the year after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to cover your strawflowers if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rapid City

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Rapid City

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