One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

The best time to plant datura in Santa Barbara can be estimated by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Datura

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

You can plant datura a bit earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant datura in Santa Barbara 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 datura and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your datura may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your datura indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Santa Barbara the average date of last frost happens on January 31. It might get as low as 30°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Santa Barbara is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Santa Barbara last frost occurs after January 31 be ready to cover your datura in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Santa Barbara

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 Barbara

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