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 Portage should be reffered to in order to estimate when to plant geum.

Planting Calendar for Geum

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

Since geum do ok in moderate cold you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant geum in Portage 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 geum and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your geum may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your geum indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Portage. It might get as low as -20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Portage is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Portage you get a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your geum in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Portage

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 Portage

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