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.

The USDA zone info for Mission Viejo should be used to figure out when to plant hollyhocks.

Planting Calendar for Hollyhocks

Frost tolerance for hollyhocks:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Since hollyhocks are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant hollyhocks in Mission Viejo 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 hollyhocks and expect a good harvest is probably October. If you wait any later than that and your hollyhocks may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your hollyhocks indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on January 31 in Mission Viejo. It might get as low as 35°F during the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Mission Viejo may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Mission Viejo you get surprised by a frost after January 31 so be sure to be ready to protect your hollyhocks in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Mission Viejo

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	35°F
Highest Expected Low	40°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 35°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 40°F.

Plants to Grow in Mission Viejo

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Mission Viejo.