One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

You should be able to estimate when it's a good idea to plant oriental poppies by looking at the USDA zone info for Aliso Viejo.

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 little earlier in the year because they do well in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant oriental poppies in Aliso Viejo 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your oriental poppies may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your oriental poppies indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on January 31 in Aliso Viejo. It might get as low as 30°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Aliso Viejo is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Aliso Viejo there is a last frost after January 31 be ready to protect your oriental poppies if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Aliso Viejo

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	30°F
Highest Expected Low	35°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 35°F.

Plants to Grow in Aliso Viejo

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Aliso Viejo.