Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for Ceres should be used to figure out when it's possible to plant cuphea.

Planting Calendar for Cuphea

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

Cuphea are not cold tolerant which tells us that you really should wait until it warms up after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant cuphea in Ceres 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 cuphea and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your cuphea may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your cuphea indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Ceres the average date of last frost happens on February 15. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Ceres is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Ceres it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to protect your cuphea in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Ceres

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 Ceres

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