One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

One way of determining when it's a good idea to plant mecardonia is to check out the USDA zone info for Roanoke.

Planting Calendar for Mecardonia

Frost tolerance for mecardonia:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

It's not a good idea to plant mecardonia until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant mecardonia in Roanoke 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 mecardonia and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your mecardonia may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your mecardonia indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Roanoke. You should expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Roanoke is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Roanoke you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your mecardonia in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Roanoke

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 Roanoke

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