One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

A common way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant peonies is to check out the USDA zone info for Santa Monica.

Planting Calendar for Peonies

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

You can plant peonies a bit earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant peonies in Santa Monica 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 peonies and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your peonies may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your peonies indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on January 31 in Santa Monica. It might get as low as 35°F during the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Santa Monica is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Santa Monica you get surprised by a frost after January 31 be ready to protect your peonies if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Santa Monica

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	35°F
Highest Expected Low	40°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 35°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 40°F.

Plants to Grow in Santa Monica

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