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.

A common way of making a decision about when to plant gazania is to refer to the USDA zone info for Santa Ana.

Planting Calendar for Gazania

Frost tolerance for gazania:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

You can plant gazania a bit earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant gazania in Santa Ana is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant gazania and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your gazania may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your gazania indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is January 31 in Santa Ana. It might get as low as 30°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Santa Ana is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Santa Ana you get a frost after January 31 be ready to cover your gazania if you have a surprise 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.