One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

The USDA zone info for Mission should be reviewed to figure out when you can plant gaillardia.

Planting Calendar for Gaillardia

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

Gaillardia tend to make it in very little cold which tells us that you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant gaillardia in Mission 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 gaillardia and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your gaillardia may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your gaillardia indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Mission. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Mission may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Mission it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your gaillardia if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Mission

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 Mission

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