Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant lavender cotton is to look at the USDA zone info for Portage.

Planting Calendar for Lavender Cotton

Frost tolerance for lavender cotton:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Lavender Cotton do well in quite a bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant lavender cotton in Portage 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 lavender cotton and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your lavender cotton may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your lavender cotton indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Portage. It might get as low as -20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Portage is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Portage it frosts late in the year after April 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your lavender cotton in the event of a 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.