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.

In Columbus you can figure out when it's possible to plant strawflowers by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Strawflowers

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

You can plant strawflowers just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant strawflowers in Columbus 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 strawflowers and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your strawflowers may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your strawflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Columbus. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Columbus is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Columbus it frosts late in the year after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your strawflowers if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Columbus

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Columbus

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