One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant strawflowers is to use the USDA zone info for Alpine.

Planting Calendar for Strawflowers

Frost tolerance for strawflowers:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Strawflowers do ok in moderate cold which means that you can plant them slightly earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant strawflowers in Alpine is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant strawflowers and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your strawflowers may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your strawflowers indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Alpine. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°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 Alpine and it is different every year. Half of the time in Alpine last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your strawflowers if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Alpine

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°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 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Alpine

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