One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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 earliest that you can plant sunflowers in Ukiah should be determined by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

Frost tolerance for sunflowers:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

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

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

The last month that you can plant sunflowers and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your sunflowers may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your sunflowers indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on February 15 in Ukiah. It might get as low as 20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Ukiah is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Ukiah there is a last frost after February 15 be ready to protect your sunflowers if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ukiah

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	20°F
Highest Expected Low	25°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 25°F.

Plants to Grow in Ukiah

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