One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

A way of getting a good idea when to plant gaillardia is to refer to the USDA zone info for Jacksonville.

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 are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant gaillardia in Jacksonville 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 really do well. If you are starting your gaillardia indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Jacksonville. You can expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Jacksonville is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Jacksonville last frost occurs after April 15 so always be ready to protect your gaillardia if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Jacksonville

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 Jacksonville

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