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 determining when to plant balsam is to check out the USDA zone info for Tucson.

Planting Calendar for Balsam

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

It's probably not a good idea to plant balsam until after all chance of frost has passed because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant balsam in Tucson 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 balsam and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your balsam may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your balsam indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on February 15 in Tucson. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Tucson is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Tucson it frosts late in the year after February 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your balsam if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Tucson

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 Tucson

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