One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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 way of determining when you can plant oriental poppies is to use the USDA zone info for El Mirage.

Planting Calendar for Oriental poppies

Frost tolerance for oriental poppies:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

You can plant oriental poppies a bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant oriental poppies in El Mirage is January. However, you really should wait until February if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant oriental poppies and expect a good harvest is probably October. If you wait any later than that and your oriental poppies may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your oriental poppies indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in El Mirage. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 25°F.

Since the USDA zone info for El Mirage is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in El Mirage there is a last frost after February 15 be ready to cover your oriental poppies in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for El Mirage

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in El Mirage

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