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

In Imperial you can determine when it's possible to plant gayfeather by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

Frost tolerance for gayfeather:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Since gayfeather are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Imperial 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 gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably October. If you wait any later than that and your gayfeather may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your gayfeather indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on January 31 in Imperial. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 30°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Imperial is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Imperial you get surprised by a frost after January 31 so make sure that you are ready to cover your gayfeather if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Imperial

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 Imperial

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