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 a good idea to plant chinese chives is to use the USDA zone info for Rancho Santa Margarita.

Planting Calendar for Chinese chives

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

Since chinese chives do well in moderate cold you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on January 31 in Rancho Santa Margarita. You should expect an average low temperature of 30°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Rancho Santa Margarita may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Rancho Santa Margarita there is a last frost after January 31 so always be ready to protect your chinese chives if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rancho Santa Margarita

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 Rancho Santa Margarita

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Rancho Santa Margarita.