Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of determining when to plant pentas is to look at the USDA zone info for National City.

Planting Calendar for Pentas

Frost tolerance for pentas:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

It's not a good idea to plant pentas until after the last frost because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant pentas in National City 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 pentas and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your pentas may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your pentas indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for National City is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in National City you get a frost after January 31 so always be ready to protect your pentas in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for National City

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 National City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for National City.