Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. 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 a good idea to plant gaillardia in Salem by checking out the USDA zone info.

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.

Gaillardia tend to make it in very little cold which tells us that you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant gaillardia in Salem 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 grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your gaillardia indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Salem. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Salem is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Salem you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your gaillardia in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Salem

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 Salem

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