Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of figuring out when to plant bleeding hearts is to examine the USDA zone info for Richmond.

Planting Calendar for Bleeding Hearts

Frost tolerance for bleeding hearts:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

You can plant bleeding hearts a bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant bleeding hearts in Richmond 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 bleeding hearts and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your bleeding hearts may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your bleeding hearts indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Richmond. You should expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Richmond is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Richmond last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your bleeding hearts if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Richmond

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 Richmond

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