One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

One way of getting a good idea when you can plant poppies is to look at the USDA zone info for Great Bend.

Planting Calendar for Poppies

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

Poppies are moderately cold tolerant which means that you can get them planted earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant poppies in Great Bend 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. If you wait any later than that and your poppies may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your poppies indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Great Bend the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Great Bend is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Great Bend you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your poppies if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Great Bend

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 Great Bend

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Great Bend.