One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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 Germantown you can figure out when it's possible to plant sunflowers by reviewing the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

Frost tolerance for sunflowers:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

It's probably a bad idea to plant sunflowers until after the last frost because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Germantown 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 sunflowers and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your sunflowers may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your sunflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Germantown the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Germantown is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Germantown there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to protect your sunflowers in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Germantown

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 Germantown

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