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 common way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant gomphrena is to look at the USDA zone info for Oakland.

Planting Calendar for Gomphrena

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

Since gomphrena do ok in moderate cold you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

Last Frost Date

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

Remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Oakland and it will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Oakland last frost occurs after January 31 so just be sure to be ready to cover your gomphrena if you have a 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 Low	30°F
Highest Expected Low	35°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.