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.

You can determine when you can plant red hot pokers in Gloucester by referring to the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Red Hot Pokers

Frost tolerance for red hot pokers:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Since red hot pokers do well in cold you can plant them much earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant red hot pokers in Gloucester 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 red hot pokers and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your red hot pokers may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your red hot pokers indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Gloucester. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Gloucester is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Gloucester it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your red hot pokers if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Gloucester

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Gloucester

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