One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

By referring to the USDA zone info for Sacramento you should be able to determine when it's the best time to plant skullcap.

Planting Calendar for Skullcap

Frost tolerance for skullcap:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

Skullcap do not do well in cold weather which tells us that you must wait until it warms up after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant skullcap in Sacramento is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant skullcap and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your skullcap may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your skullcap indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on February 15 in Sacramento. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Sacramento is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Sacramento you get a frost after February 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your skullcap if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Sacramento

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Sacramento

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