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When to Plant Garden Mums in Oakland, CA

Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out 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 it's the best time to plant garden mums is to consult the USDA zone info for Oakland.

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Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

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

Garden Mums tend to make it in a little bit of cold which means that you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant garden mums
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant garden mums
Probably not a good time to plant garden mums

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in Oakland 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 garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your garden mums may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your garden mums indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is January 31 in Oakland. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 30°F.

Remember that the actual date of last frost may not be accurate from year to year because it is based on the USDA zone info for Oakland and it will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Oakland it frosts late in the year after January 31 be ready to protect your garden mums in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oakland

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)December 15
Lowest Expected Low30°F
Highest Expected Low35°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 35°F.

Plants to Grow in Oakland

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