When to Plant Poppies in Kokomo, IN

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out 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 common way of estimating when it's the best time to plant poppies is to consult the USDA zone info for Kokomo.


Planting Calendar for Poppies

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

Since poppies are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a little earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant poppies
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant poppies
Probably not a good time to plant poppies

The earliest that you can plant poppies in Kokomo 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

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Kokomo. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Kokomo is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Kokomo you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your poppies if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Kokomo

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 Kokomo

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