One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

A common way of determining when you can plant columbine is to examine the USDA zone info for Brownwood.

Planting Calendar for Columbine

Frost tolerance for columbine:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Since columbine are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant columbine in Brownwood 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 columbine and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your columbine may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your columbine indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Brownwood. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Brownwood may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Brownwood it frosts late in the year after March 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your columbine if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Brownwood

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Brownwood

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