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.

The USDA zone info for Lake Mills can be reffered to in order to figure out when to plant columbine.

Planting Calendar for Columbine

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

You can plant columbine a little bit earlier in the year because they are moderately cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant columbine in Lake Mills 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 columbine and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your columbine may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your columbine indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Lake Mills. It might get as low as -20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Lake Mills is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Lake Mills it frosts late in the year after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to cover your columbine if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Lake Mills

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 Lake Mills

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Lake Mills.