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.

In Mount Carmel you can determine when it's a good idea to plant cosmos by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Cosmos

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

Cosmos do ok in moderate cold which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant cosmos in Mount Carmel 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 cosmos and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your cosmos may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your cosmos indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Mount Carmel the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of 0°F in the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Mount Carmel and it will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Mount Carmel it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your cosmos in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Mount Carmel

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Mount Carmel

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Mount Carmel.