One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

A common way of determining when it's a good idea to plant dahlias is to use the USDA zone info for Cerritos.

Planting Calendar for Dahlias

Frost tolerance for dahlias:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

It's a bad idea to plant dahlias until after the last frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant dahlias in Cerritos is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant dahlias and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your dahlias may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your dahlias indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Cerritos the average date of last frost happens on January 31. It might get as low as 35°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Cerritos is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Cerritos there is a last frost after January 31 so be sure to be ready to protect your dahlias if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Cerritos

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	35°F
Highest Expected Low	40°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 35°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 40°F.

Plants to Grow in Cerritos

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