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.

In Mena you can figure out when it's possible to plant dahlia by reviewing the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Dahlia

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

You should not plant dahlia until after the last frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant dahlia 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 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

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Mena. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Mena is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Mena you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your dahlia 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.