One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of determining when it's a good idea to plant bleeding hearts is to check out the USDA zone info for Ephrata.

Planting Calendar for Bleeding Hearts

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

You can plant bleeding hearts a bit earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant bleeding hearts in Ephrata 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 bleeding hearts and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your bleeding hearts may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your bleeding hearts indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Ephrata is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Ephrata there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to cover your bleeding hearts if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ephrata

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 Ephrata

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