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.

One way of determining when it's a good idea to plant gayfeather is to refer to the USDA zone info for Evanston.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

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

Gayfeather can survive in cold weather which means that you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Evanston 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 gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your gayfeather may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your gayfeather indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Evanston. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Evanston is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Evanston you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your gayfeather in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Evanston

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 Evanston

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