When to Plant Oriental poppies in Turlock, CA

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the 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 Turlock should be used to estimate when you can plant oriental poppies.


Planting Calendar for Oriental poppies

Frost tolerance for oriental poppies: Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant: Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Oriental poppies tend to make it in a little bit of cold which means that you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant oriental poppies
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant oriental poppies
Probably not a good time to plant oriental poppies

The earliest that you can plant oriental poppies in Turlock is January. However, you really should wait until February if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant oriental poppies and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your oriental poppies may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your oriental poppies indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on February 15 in Turlock. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Turlock is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Turlock last frost occurs after February 15 be ready to protect your oriental poppies in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Turlock

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 Low25°F
Highest Expected Low30°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 Turlock

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