One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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 making a decision about when it's possible to plant penstemon is to use the USDA zone info for San Ramon.

Planting Calendar for Penstemon

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

Since penstemon are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant penstemon in San Ramon 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 penstemon and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your penstemon may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your penstemon indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in San Ramon. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for San Ramon may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in San Ramon it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to protect your penstemon if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for San Ramon

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 Ramon

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