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.

You can determine when it's a good idea to plant centaurea in Rocky Mount by referring to the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Centaurea

Frost tolerance for centaurea:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Centaurea are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which tells us that you can get them planted earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant centaurea in Rocky Mount 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 centaurea and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your centaurea may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your centaurea 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 Rocky Mount. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 0°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Rocky Mount may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Rocky Mount it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your centaurea in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Rocky Mount

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Rocky Mount

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Rocky Mount.