One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate 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.

One way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant oriental poppies is to refer to the USDA zone info for Watseka.

Planting Calendar for Oriental poppies

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

Oriental poppies tend to make it in a little bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

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

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Watseka. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Watseka is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Watseka it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your oriental poppies in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Watseka

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 Watseka

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