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.

In Monroe you can determine when it's possible to plant oriental poppies by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Oriental poppies

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

Since oriental poppies are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant oriental poppies in Monroe 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 oriental poppies and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your oriental poppies may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your oriental poppies indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Monroe. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Monroe is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Monroe last frost occurs after March 15 be ready to protect your oriental poppies if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Monroe

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Monroe

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