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.

You can figure out when it's the best time to plant dracaena in Ottawa by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Dracaena

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

Since dracaena are very cold tolerant 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 dracaena in Ottawa 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 dracaena and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your dracaena may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your dracaena indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Ottawa. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Ottawa is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Ottawa you get a frost after April 15 so always be ready to cover your dracaena if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Ottawa

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 Ottawa

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