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.

One way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant common hollyhock is to check out the USDA zone info for San Marcos.

Planting Calendar for Common hollyhock

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

Common hollyhock are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which means that you can plant them earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant common hollyhock in San Marcos 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 common hollyhock and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your common hollyhock may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your common hollyhock indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In San Marcos the average date of last frost happens on January 31. You can expect an average low temperature of 30°F in the coldest months of winter.

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for San Marcos is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in San Marcos you get a frost after January 31 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your common hollyhock if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for San Marcos

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	30°F
Highest Expected Low	35°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 35°F.

Plants to Grow in San Marcos

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