One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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 making a decision about when it's the best time to plant cleome is to use the USDA zone info for El Monte.

Planting Calendar for Cleome

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

Since cleome require warm weather you really should wait until after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant cleome in El Monte 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 cleome and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your cleome may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your cleome indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is January 31 in El Monte. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 30°F.

Since the USDA zone info for El Monte may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in El Monte you get surprised by a frost after January 31 be ready to protect your cleome in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for El Monte

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 El Monte

You may be interested in your other planting guides for El Monte.