One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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 common way of determining when it's the best time to plant hosta is to look at the USDA zone info for San Jose.

Planting Calendar for Hosta

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

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

The earliest that you can plant hosta in San Jose 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 hosta and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your hosta may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your hosta indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on February 15 in San Jose. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost may not be accurate from year to year because it is based on the USDA zone info for San Jose and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in San Jose last frost occurs after February 15 be ready to protect your hosta in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for San Jose

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 San Jose

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