One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 way of determining when it's possible to plant pennisetum is to examine the USDA zone info for Sunnyvale.

Planting Calendar for Pennisetum

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

You can plant pennisetum just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on February 15 in Sunnyvale. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Sunnyvale is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Sunnyvale there is a last frost after February 15 be ready to protect your pennisetum if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Sunnyvale

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 Sunnyvale

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