The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for Santa Cruz should be reffered to in order to figure out when it's the best time to plant datura.

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.

Datura are barely cold tolerant which tells us that you can plant them slightly earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant datura in Santa Cruz 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. Any later than that and your datura may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your datura indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Santa Cruz. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Santa Cruz is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Santa Cruz it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to cover your datura in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Santa Cruz

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Santa Cruz

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