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.

In Racine you can figure out when it's the best time to plant cleome by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Cleome

Frost tolerance for cleome:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

You can not plant cleome until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant cleome in Racine 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 cleome and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your cleome may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your cleome indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Racine is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Racine you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your cleome in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Racine

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Racine

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