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.

A way of estimating when it's possible to plant cardinal flower is to examine the USDA zone info for Santee.

Planting Calendar for Cardinal Flower

Frost tolerance for cardinal flower:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's probably a bad idea to plant cardinal flower until after all chance of frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant cardinal flower in Santee 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 cardinal flower and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your cardinal flower may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your cardinal flower indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Santee the average date of last frost happens on January 31. It might get as low as 30°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Santee is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Santee it frosts late in the year after January 31 be ready to cover your cardinal flower if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Santee

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 Santee

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Santee.