Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. 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 Ponchatoula can be looked at to figure out when to plant melampodium.

Planting Calendar for Melampodium

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant melampodium until after the last frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant melampodium in Ponchatoula 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 melampodium and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your melampodium may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your melampodium indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Ponchatoula. It might get as low as 15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Ponchatoula is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Ponchatoula last frost occurs after March 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your melampodium in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Ponchatoula

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 Ponchatoula

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