One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You should be able to figure out when it's a good idea to plant osteospermum by looking at the USDA zone info for Gainesville.

Planting Calendar for Osteospermum

Frost tolerance for osteospermum:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Since osteospermum are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather 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 osteospermum in Gainesville is January. However, you really should wait until February if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant osteospermum and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your osteospermum may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your osteospermum indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on February 15 in Gainesville. It might get as low as 20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Gainesville may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Gainesville you get a frost after February 15 so always be ready to protect your osteospermum if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Gainesville

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	20°F
Highest Expected Low	25°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 25°F.

Plants to Grow in Gainesville

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