One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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.

One way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant lantana is to look at the USDA zone info for New Orleans.

Planting Calendar for Lantana

Frost tolerance for lantana:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's probably a bad idea to plant lantana until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant lantana in New Orleans 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 lantana and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your lantana may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your lantana indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on February 15 in New Orleans. You should expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for New Orleans may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in New Orleans you get a frost after February 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your lantana if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for New Orleans

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in New Orleans

You may be interested in your other planting guides for New Orleans.