One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate 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.

A way of figuring out when to plant lemon grass is to examine the USDA zone info for Santa Cruz.

Planting Calendar for Lemon grass

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

Lemon grass do ok in moderate cold which means that you can plant them slightly earlier than other frost tender plants.

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

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on February 15 in Santa Cruz. You should expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost may not be accurate from year to year because it is based on the USDA zone info for Santa Cruz and it is different every year. Half of the time in Santa Cruz it frosts late in the year after February 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your lemon grass if you have 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.