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 determining when it's possible to plant red hot pokers is to examine the USDA zone info for Mission Viejo.

Planting Calendar for Red Hot Pokers

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

Red Hot Pokers do well in cold which tells us that you can start planting them much earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant red hot pokers 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 red hot pokers and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your red hot pokers may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your red hot pokers indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Mission Viejo the average date of last frost happens on January 31. It might get as low as 35°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Mission Viejo is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Mission Viejo you get surprised by a frost after January 31 be ready to cover your red hot pokers in the event of one of those late frosts.

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.