One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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.

It's a good idea to figure out when you can plant gayfeather by using the USDA zone info for Ripley.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

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

Since gayfeather do well in cold you can plant them much earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Ripley 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 gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your gayfeather may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your gayfeather indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Remember that USDA zone info for Ripley is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Ripley last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your gayfeather if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ripley

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°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 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Ripley

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