One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The first opportunity to plant monkey flower in Santa Barbara can be figured out by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Monkey Flower

Frost tolerance for monkey flower:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

Monkey Flower are not cold tolerant which means that it's necessary to wait until it warms up after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant monkey flower 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 monkey flower and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your monkey flower may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your monkey flower indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Santa Barbara 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 Barbara last frost occurs after January 31 be ready to protect your monkey flower if you have a late frost.

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.