When to Plant Iceland Poppy in Santa Barbara, CA

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.

You can determine when it's a good idea to plant iceland poppy in Santa Barbara by checking out the USDA zone info.


Planting Calendar for Iceland Poppy

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

Since iceland poppy do well in moderate cold you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant iceland poppy
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant iceland poppy
Probably not a good time to plant iceland poppy

The earliest that you can plant iceland poppy in Santa Barbara 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 iceland poppy and expect a good harvest is probably October. If you wait any later than that and your iceland poppy may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your iceland poppy indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on January 31 in Santa Barbara. You can expect an average low temperature of 30°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Santa Barbara may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Santa Barbara there is a last frost after January 31 so always be ready to cover your iceland poppy 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 Low30°F
Highest Expected Low35°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.