One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

It's a good idea to figure out when you can plant cuphea by looking at the USDA zone info for Lafayette.

Planting Calendar for Cuphea

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

It's a bad idea to plant cuphea until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant cuphea in Lafayette 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 fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your cuphea indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Lafayette. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Lafayette is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Lafayette you get a frost after February 15 be ready to cover your cuphea if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Lafayette

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 Lafayette

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