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 way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant bleeding hearts is to look at the USDA zone info for San Diego.

Planting Calendar for Bleeding Hearts

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

Since bleeding hearts are barely cold tolerant you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant bleeding hearts in San Diego 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 bleeding hearts and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your bleeding hearts may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your bleeding hearts indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is January 31 in San Diego. It might get as low as 35°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for San Diego is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in San Diego you get surprised by a frost after January 31 so just be sure to be ready to cover your bleeding hearts if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for San Diego

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	35°F
Highest Expected Low	40°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 35°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 40°F.

Plants to Grow in San Diego

You may be interested in your other planting guides for San Diego.