One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 figuring out when to plant cuphea is to use the USDA zone info for Oakdale.

Planting Calendar for Cuphea

Frost tolerance for cuphea:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

Cuphea are not cold tolerant which tells us that you have to wait until it warms up after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant cuphea in Oakdale is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant cuphea and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your cuphea may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your cuphea indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Oakdale the average date of last frost happens on March 15. You should expect an average low temperature of 15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Oakdale is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Oakdale last frost occurs after March 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your cuphea in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Oakdale

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 Oakdale

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