One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

You should be able to figure out when to plant cuphea by looking at the USDA zone info for South Gate.

Planting Calendar for Cuphea

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

You really shouldn't plant cuphea until after the last frost because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant cuphea in South Gate 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 cuphea and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your cuphea may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your cuphea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is January 31 in South Gate. You can expect an average low temperature of 35°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for South Gate may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in South Gate it frosts late in the year after January 31 so just be sure to be ready to protect your cuphea if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for South Gate

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 South Gate

You may be interested in your other planting guides for South Gate.