One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the 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 pansies is to check out the USDA zone info for Oakland.

Planting Calendar for Pansies

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

Since pansies are very cold tolerant you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant pansies 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 pansies and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your pansies may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your pansies indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on January 31 in Oakland. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 30°F.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Oakland and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Oakland you get a frost after January 31 so make sure that you are ready to protect your pansies in the event of one of those late frosts.

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.