One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out 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.

A way of estimating when it's possible to plant arabis is to examine the USDA zone info for Clay.

Planting Calendar for Arabis

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

Arabis do ok in pretty solid cold which means that you can plant them much earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant arabis in Clay 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 arabis and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your arabis may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your arabis indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Clay. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 5°F.

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Clay is an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Clay last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your arabis if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Clay

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 Clay

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