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.

The USDA zone info for Zone 7b can be looked at to figure out when it's the best time 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 do well in moderate cold you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in Zone 7b 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. Any later than that and your garden mums may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your garden mums indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Zone 7b. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Zone 7b is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Zone 7b last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your garden mums if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Zone 7b

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°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 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Zone 7b

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Zone 7b.