One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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.

A common way of making a decision about when you can plant calibrachoa is to consult the USDA zone info for El Dorado.

Planting Calendar for Calibrachoa

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

Calibrachoa are barely cold tolerant which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant calibrachoa in El Dorado 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 calibrachoa and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your calibrachoa may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your calibrachoa indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in El Dorado. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for El Dorado is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in El Dorado you get a frost after April 15 so always be ready to cover your calibrachoa in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for El Dorado

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 El Dorado

You may be interested in your other planting guides for El Dorado.