Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine 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 to plant garden mums is to check out the USDA zone info for San Diego.

Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

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

Garden Mums are moderately cold tolerant which means that you can start planting them earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in San Diego 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 garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably October. Any later than that and your garden mums may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your garden mums indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on January 31 in San Diego. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 35°F.

Since the USDA zone info for San Diego is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in San Diego it frosts late in the year after January 31 be ready to protect your garden mums if you have a late frost.

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.