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.

The USDA zone info for Tehachapi should be used to determine when it's the best time to plant cuphea.

Planting Calendar for Cuphea

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

You can not plant cuphea until after the last frost because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant cuphea in Tehachapi is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant cuphea and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your cuphea may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your cuphea indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Tehachapi the average date of last frost happens on March 15. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Tehachapi is an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Tehachapi there is a last frost after March 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your cuphea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Tehachapi

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Tehachapi

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