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.

A common way of determining when it's possible to plant cosmos is to refer to the USDA zone info for Thousand Oaks.

Planting Calendar for Cosmos

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

Cosmos do ok in a tiny bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant cosmos in Thousand Oaks 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 cosmos and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your cosmos may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your cosmos indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is January 31 in Thousand Oaks. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 30°F.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Thousand Oaks and it is different every year. Half of the time in Thousand Oaks you get surprised by a frost after January 31 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your cosmos in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Thousand Oaks

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 Thousand Oaks

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Thousand Oaks.