The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening 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 estimating when it's a good idea to plant gaillardia is to use the USDA zone info for Zone 6b.

Planting Calendar for Gaillardia

Frost tolerance for gaillardia:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

You can plant gaillardia just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant gaillardia in Zone 6b is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant gaillardia and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your gaillardia may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your gaillardia indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Zone 6b. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Zone 6b is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Zone 6b you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your gaillardia if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Zone 6b

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 Zone 6b

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Zone 6b.