April is one of the two finest months in Kansas. Shorebirds pour through Cheyenne Bottoms and Quivira by the hundreds of thousands, the Flint Hills glow green behind the spring burns, and the redbuds and woodland wildflowers reach their peak.
Week by week in April
April 2–8
- The spring shorebird migration builds at Cheyenne Bottoms, with sandpipers, dowitchers, and avocets on the mudflats.
- Woodland ephemerals peak in the eastern bottoms — bluebells, wild blue phlox, and mayapple under the opening canopy.
- Set out the first tomatoes and peppers in the mild east after the mid-April average last frost passes.
- Eastern redbuds reach peak magenta bloom across the eastern and southern woods and roadsides.
April 9–15
- The first ruby-throated hummingbirds, barn swallows, and early warblers arrive across the state.
- The first monarchs reach Kansas, laying eggs on emerging milkweed as they move north.
- Asparagus comes into full season alongside abundant spring spinach, lettuce, and green onions.
- Orion sinks in the west after dark as Leo and Virgo with bright Spica take command of the evening.
April 16–22
- Scissor-tailed flycatchers return to the wires of southern Kansas, and dickcissels and meadowlarks sing on the grass.
- The Lyrid meteor shower peaks around April 22, radiating from near bright Vega rising in the northeast after midnight.
- The first true tallgrass flowers — blue wild indigo and plains puccoon — open in the greening Flint Hills.
- After the local frost date, direct-sow beans, squash, and sweet corn as the soil warms.
April 23–29
- Buff-breasted sandpipers and Hudsonian godwits funnel through the central marshes in globally significant numbers.
- The bottomland canopy greens and closes as cottonwoods, oaks, and hackberries fully leaf out.
- Eastern tiger swallowtails sail through the last of the redbud bloom in the eastern woods.
- Rhubarb, the first strawberries, and abundant vegetable and flower starts fill the reopening outdoor markets.
Birds This Month
April is a premier birding month in Kansas, driven by the spectacular spring shorebird migration. Cheyenne Bottoms — the largest interior marsh in the United States — and nearby Quivira National Wildlife Refuge together form a hemispheric staging area where hundreds of thousands of shorebirds rest and feed. The mudflats teem with white-rumped, Baird's, pectoral, and semipalmated sandpipers, long-billed dowitchers, Wilson's phalaropes, American avocets, black-necked stilts, and the globally significant flocks of buff-breasted sandpipers and Hudsonian godwits that funnel through Kansas. Whooping cranes sometimes pause here on migration.
The prairie continues to perform. Greater prairie-chickens still boom on the Flint Hills leks early in the month, and the songbird migration accelerates — the first ruby-throated hummingbirds, barn and cliff swallows, chimney swifts, and early warblers (yellow-rumped, orange-crowned, Nashville) arrive, with the dazzling male scissor-tailed flycatcher, a summer signature of the southern plains, returning to fence wires by late month.
Around farms and towns, brown thrashers, house wrens, and blue-gray gnatcatchers set up, and the air fills with the songs of returning dickcissels, grasshopper sparrows, and western meadowlarks on the grass.
This month's tip: time a visit to Cheyenne Bottoms or Quivira for late April after a rain has freshened the mudflats — and bring a spotting scope, because the shorebird flocks are vast and spread wide across the flats.
What's Blooming
April is the peak of the Kansas woodland wildflower season and the opening of the prairie's. In the rich eastern bottomlands, the spring ephemerals reach their fullest before the canopy closes — sheets of Virginia bluebells along the creeks, wild blue phlox, celandine poppy, spring beauty, Dutchman's breeches, and the unfurling umbrellas of mayapple carpet the gallery woods, with jack-in-the-pulpit rising in the damp hollows.
On the prairie the season begins to open. The first true tallgrass wildflowers appear among the new green of the burned hills — prairie violets, the lavender-blue of blue wild indigo starting late in the month, golden groundplum and bastard toadflax, and the cheerful yellow of plains puccoon and early Indian paintbrush in places. The sand plum and wild plum thickets are still white with bloom along the draws. Visit the eastern woodlands for the richest ephemeral displays in the first half of the month, then watch the freshly green Flint Hills for the prairie's first flowers in the second half.
Garden This Month
April is the great pivot in the Kansas garden, from the cool-season crops to the warm. Early in the month, keep sowing and planting the cool-lovers — peas, lettuce, spinach, carrots, beets, and brassica transplants — and get onions and potatoes in if you have not. Then the year turns on the average last frost, which falls in mid-April in eastern and southern Kansas, mid-to-late April across the center, and into early May in the high-plains west.
Once your local frost date passes and the soil has genuinely warmed, harden off and set out the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and basil you have grown under lights, and begin direct-sowing the warm-season seeds — beans, squash, cucumbers, and sweet corn. Patience pays: cold Kansas soil makes these crops sulk and rot, and a late freeze or a screaming south wind can undo an early planting, so keep row cover ready. This is also a fine month to plant asparagus crowns, perennials, native wildflowers, and pollinator beds, and to mulch well — Kansas wind and summer heat dry beds fast, and a thick mulch is the single best defense.
Zone 5b (western and north-central Kansas): the cool-season garden goes in fully now — sow peas, lettuce, spinach, carrots, beets, and radishes, set out onions, potatoes, and brassica transplants. The average last frost is late April into early May here, so hold tomatoes, peppers, and other tender crops until the very end of the month at the earliest, with frost cloth and wind protection ready.
Zone 6a (central Kansas): a transition month. Keep planting cool-season crops early, then around the mid-to-late-April average last frost, harden off and set out tomatoes, peppers, and basil, and direct-sow beans and squash once the soil warms. A late frost and a hard wind are still possible, so keep row cover handy.
Zone 6b–7a (eastern Kansas — Kansas City at 6b, Wichita and the southeast at 7a): the warm-season garden begins. After the mid-April average last frost, set out tomato, pepper, and eggplant transplants, and direct-sow beans, corn, squash, and cucumbers as the soil warms. Finish any remaining cool-season sowings early in the month before the heat builds.
What's at the Farmers Market
April is when Kansas markets turn fully green. The signature crop of the month is asparagus, in full season now — choose firm, straight spears with tight, compact tips and pass over any that are limp or splitting open. Alongside it the spring greens are abundant: spinach, arugula, leaf lettuces, salad mix, and the first radishes, green onions, and green garlic.
This is the season for early-spring specialties — tart red-and-green rhubarb, tender spinach and kale, and the bedding plants, vegetable starts, and flower seedlings that growers sell heavily now for home gardens. Kansas staples fill the rest of the table: local honey, eggs, grass-fed beef and pork, and stone-ground flour and wheat berries. The outdoor markets in Lawrence, Topeka, Wichita, and the Kansas City area are reopening for the season.
For selection and storage: keep asparagus crisp by standing the spears upright in a jar with an inch of water in the refrigerator, or by wrapping the cut ends in a damp towel. Store tender greens dry in the crisper and use them within a few days. Trim radish and green-onion tops if storing more than a day or two, and keep rhubarb refrigerated and unwashed until you use it.
Night Sky This Month
April brings the spring sky into command over Kansas. The dark plains skies remain a draw — the Cimarron National Grassland and the open southwest, Lake Scott State Park, the Wilson and Webster reservoir lands, and the wide Flint Hills back roads all offer the horizon-to-horizon darkness that the flat, treeless prairie does so well.
The winter giants — Orion and his retinue — sink in the west soon after dark, while spring takes over: Leo the Lion rides high in the south, Virgo with bright Spica climbs in the southeast, and the Big Dipper hangs nearly overhead. Follow its handle to arc to orange Arcturus in Boötes, then on to Spica. The Lyrid meteor shower peaks around April 22, an old, reliable shower radiating from near bright Vega in the northeast — best after midnight from a dark, moonless site. With the winter Milky Way setting and the summer one not yet risen in the evening, April is a galaxy-hunting month, with the Virgo Cluster and the galaxies of Leo well placed.
Because the planets and the exact Lyrid peak shift each year, check the printable Kansas night-sky guide for this year's specific viewing nights and planet visibility from your latitude. Wait for a clear, calm night behind a cold front for the steadiest, most transparent prairie air.
Butterflies & Pollinators
April brings the Kansas butterfly season fully to life. The big news is the return of the monarch — the spring generation works its way north across the state, the females laying eggs on emerging milkweed as they go, and the first monarch drifting over a greening prairie is one of April's quiet pleasures. The garden and woodland species multiply quickly: black swallowtails patrol the herbs, cabbage whites and orange sulphurs work fields and roadsides, and spring azures flicker along the timber.
This is also a major month for migrants. Painted ladies, red admirals, and American ladies push up from the south, sometimes in large flights across the open plains, and the first variegated fritillaries and common buckeyes recolonize the prairie. In the eastern woods, the eastern tiger swallowtail begins to sail through the redbud bloom, and the falcate orangetip flies along the creeks. To support them, keep native milkweed coming up and protected for the monarchs, and make sure early nectar — plum, redbud, dandelion, and spring phlox — is on offer for the season's first flights.
Trees This Month
April is the showpiece month of the Kansas tree year. The eastern redbud reaches its peak, lighting up the eastern and southern woods, town streets, and roadsides with clouds of magenta-pink flowers blooming directly on bare branches and trunks — the defining image of a Kansas spring. Around it the wild plum and sand plum thickets are white along the draws, and the serviceberry and ornamental pears add more early white.
Then the whole gallery forest leafs out. The eastern cottonwoods along the creeks flush their bright new green and finish casting catkins, the bur oaks, hackberries, green ash, and black walnuts in the bottoms unfurl new leaves and dangle pollen catkins, and the American elms hang their papery seeds. By late April the bottomland canopy has greened and begun to close, ending the woodland ephemeral season beneath it. On the farmsteads, the eastern redcedar windbreaks stand dark green against all the new spring color.
Weather & Daylight
Across Kansas, a typical April day averages a high near 67°F and a low near 41°F, with about 2.7 inches of precipitation — statewide averages from the 1991–2020 U.S. climate normals.
Mild and noticeably wetter, afternoons in the upper 60s giving way to cool, damp evenings near 41.
| Average high | 67°F |
|---|---|
| Average low | 41°F |
| Precipitation | 2.7 in |
| Sunrise (mid-month) | 6:54 CT |
| Sunset (mid-month) | 20:05 CT |
Figures are statewide averages over the 1991–2020 U.S. climate normals; local conditions vary with elevation and distance from the coast. Sunrise and sunset are computed for a midstate point on the 15th (CT).
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One short note when Kansas's next month turns — what's arriving, blooming, and worth a night outside.
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Same month elsewhere: April in Kentucky · April in Louisiana · April in Maine