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.

You should be able to figure out when it's a good idea to plant sunflowers by looking at the USDA zone info for Vernon.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

Frost tolerance for sunflowers:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

Since sunflowers are not cold tolerant it is necessary to wait until after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Vernon 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your sunflowers may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your sunflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Vernon. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 5°F.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Vernon and it is different every year. Since half of the time in Vernon it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your sunflowers if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Vernon

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 Vernon

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