Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for Jacksonville can be reffered to in order to determine when it's the best time to plant dahlia.

Planting Calendar for Dahlia

Frost tolerance for dahlia:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

You can not plant dahlia until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant dahlia in Jacksonville is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant dahlia and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your dahlia may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your dahlia indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Jacksonville. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Jacksonville is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Jacksonville it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your dahlia 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.