Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of making a decision about when it's possible to plant sunflowers is to use the USDA zone info for Bristol.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

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

You can not plant sunflowers until after all chance of frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Bristol 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. If you are starting your sunflowers 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 when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Bristol. You should expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Bristol may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Bristol you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your sunflowers in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Bristol

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 Bristol

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