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 common way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant lovage is to look at the USDA zone info for El Dorado.

Planting Calendar for Lovage

Frost tolerance for lovage:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Since lovage are barely cold tolerant you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant lovage in El Dorado 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 lovage and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your lovage may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your lovage indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in El Dorado. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for El Dorado is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in El Dorado it frosts late in the year after March 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your lovage if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for El Dorado

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 15°F.

Plants to Grow in El Dorado

You may be interested in your other planting guides for El Dorado.