One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

In Mena you can figure out when it's a good idea to plant bougainvillea by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Bougainvillea

Frost tolerance for bougainvillea:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

You can not plant bougainvillea until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant bougainvillea in Mena 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 bougainvillea and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your bougainvillea may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your bougainvillea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Mena is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Mena it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your bougainvillea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Mena

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 Mena

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