One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

You should be able to estimate when it's the best time to plant garden mums by looking at the USDA zone info for Santa Ana.

Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

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

Since garden mums are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a little earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in Santa Ana 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your garden mums may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your garden mums indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on January 31 in Santa Ana. You can expect an average low temperature of 30°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Santa Ana is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Santa Ana you get surprised by a frost after January 31 so just be sure to be ready to cover your garden mums if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Santa Ana

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 Santa Ana

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Santa Ana.