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 determining when you can plant caladium is to check out the USDA zone info for Arkansas City.

Planting Calendar for Caladium

Frost tolerance for caladium:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

It's a bad idea to plant caladium until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant caladium in Arkansas City is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant caladium and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your caladium may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your caladium indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Arkansas City. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Arkansas City may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Arkansas City last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your caladium in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Arkansas City

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Arkansas City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Arkansas City.