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 Elgin you can figure out when you can plant flowering maple by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Flowering Maple

Frost tolerance for flowering maple:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's a bad idea to plant flowering maple until after all chance of frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant flowering maple in Elgin 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 flowering maple and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your flowering maple may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your flowering maple indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Elgin. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Elgin and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Elgin it frosts late in the year after March 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your flowering maple in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Elgin

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Elgin

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