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 way of figuring out when to plant carnation is to check out the USDA zone info for Live Oak.

Planting Calendar for Carnation

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

Carnation do well in cold which means that you can get them planted much earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant carnation in Live Oak 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 carnation and expect a good harvest is probably October. Any later than that and your carnation may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your carnation indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on February 15 in Live Oak. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Live Oak is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Live Oak it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to protect your carnation in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Live Oak

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 Live Oak

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Live Oak.