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.

A common way of determining when it's a good idea to plant cuphea is to look at the USDA zone info for Vermillion.

Planting Calendar for Cuphea

Frost tolerance for cuphea:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

Cuphea require warm weather which means that you really should wait until it warms up after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

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

Last Frost Date

In Vermillion the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Vermillion is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Vermillion you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your cuphea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Vermillion

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 Vermillion

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