One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

In Salem you can figure out when you can plant diascia by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Diascia

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

Diascia are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which means that you can get them planted earlier than more sensitive plants.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Salem. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Salem is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Salem you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your diascia if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Salem

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Salem

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