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.

The USDA zone info for Bowie should be reffered to in order to estimate when it's a good idea to plant sunflowers.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

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

You really shouldn't plant sunflowers until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Bowie 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 sunflowers and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your sunflowers may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your sunflowers indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Bowie. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 5°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Bowie is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Bowie last frost occurs after April 15 so always be ready to protect your sunflowers if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Bowie

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 Bowie

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