One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

The USDA zone info for Suffolk should be reffered to in order to figure out when it's a good idea to plant lobelia.

Planting Calendar for Lobelia

Frost tolerance for lobelia:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

You can plant lobelia quite a bit earlier in the year because they do well in cold.

The earliest that you can plant lobelia in Suffolk 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 lobelia and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your lobelia may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lobelia indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Suffolk. You can expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Suffolk is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Suffolk you get a frost after March 15 so always be ready to protect your lobelia if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Suffolk

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Suffolk

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