One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

One way of determining when to plant gerbera is to examine the USDA zone info for Madera.

Planting Calendar for Gerbera

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

Gerbera are barely cold tolerant which means that you can plant them slightly earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant gerbera in Madera 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 gerbera and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your gerbera may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your gerbera indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Madera and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Madera it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to protect your gerbera in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Madera

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 Madera

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