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.

A way of figuring out when you can plant poppies is to examine the USDA zone info for Ottawa.

Planting Calendar for Poppies

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

Poppies do well in moderate cold which means that you can plant them earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant poppies in Ottawa 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 poppies and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your poppies may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your poppies indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Ottawa. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Ottawa is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Ottawa there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your poppies if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ottawa

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Ottawa

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