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.

You can figure out when it's a good idea to plant gayfeather in Ridgecrest by referring to the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

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

Since gayfeather are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Ridgecrest 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 gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your gayfeather may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your gayfeather 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 March 15 in Ridgecrest. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Ridgecrest and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Ridgecrest you get a frost after March 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your gayfeather if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Ridgecrest

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Ridgecrest

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