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 best time to plant hardy hibiscus in Elgin can be determined by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Hardy Hibiscus

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

Since hardy hibiscus are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them much earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant hardy hibiscus in Elgin 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 hardy hibiscus and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your hardy hibiscus may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your hardy hibiscus indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Elgin. You should expect an average low temperature of 15°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 Elgin and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Elgin last frost occurs after March 15 be ready to cover your hardy hibiscus if you have one of those late frosts.

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.