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.

By using the USDA zone info for Nitro it's a good idea to determine when it's a good idea to plant garden mums.

Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

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

Since garden mums are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in Nitro 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 garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your garden mums may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your garden mums indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Nitro. You should expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Nitro may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Nitro it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your garden mums in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Nitro

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Nitro

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