One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 way of figuring out when it's possible to plant gayfeather is to use the USDA zone info for Rockdale.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

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

You can plant gayfeather a lot earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Rockdale 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. Any later than that and your gayfeather may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your gayfeather indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on March 15 in Rockdale. It might get as low as 15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Rockdale is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Rockdale last frost occurs after March 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your gayfeather if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Rockdale

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 Rockdale

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