One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of estimating when you can plant tritoma is to refer to the USDA zone info for Zone 5b.

Planting Calendar for Tritoma

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

Tritoma do ok in a bit of cold which means that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant tritoma in Zone 5b 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 tritoma and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your tritoma may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your tritoma indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Zone 5b is just an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Zone 5b last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your tritoma if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Zone 5b

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 Zone 5b

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Zone 5b.