Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. 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 garden mums in Washington can be figured out by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Garden Mums

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

You can plant garden mums just a bit earlier in the year because they do well in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant garden mums in Washington 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 garden mums and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your garden mums may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your garden mums indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Washington the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of 0°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Washington is just an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Washington it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your garden mums in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Washington

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Washington

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