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.

A common way of determining when it's possible to plant creeping zinnia is to look at the USDA zone info for Chico.

Planting Calendar for Creeping Zinnia

Frost tolerance for creeping zinnia:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Creeping Zinnia do ok in a tiny bit of cold which means that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant creeping zinnia in Chico 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 creeping zinnia and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your creeping zinnia may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your creeping zinnia indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Chico the average date of last frost happens on February 15. You can expect an average low temperature of 20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Chico may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Chico you get a frost after February 15 be ready to protect your creeping zinnia in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Chico

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	20°F
Highest Expected Low	25°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 25°F.

Plants to Grow in Chico

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