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 way of determining when it's a good idea to plant achimenes is to check out the USDA zone info for Tampa.

Planting Calendar for Achimenes

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

Achimenes require warm weather which tells us that you really should wait until it warms up after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant achimenes in Tampa 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 achimenes and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your achimenes may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your achimenes indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Tampa is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Tampa you get surprised by a frost after February 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your achimenes in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Tampa

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 Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°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 Tampa

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