Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant garden mums is to look at the USDA zone info for Santa Maria.

Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

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

Garden Mums can survive in mild cold which means that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in Santa Maria 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 garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably October. If you wait any later than that and your garden mums may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your garden mums indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on February 15 in Santa Maria. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Always keep in mind 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 Maria and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Santa Maria last frost occurs after February 15 be ready to protect your garden mums in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Santa Maria

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 Maria

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