The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule. 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 possible to plant salvia is to look at the USDA zone info for Salem.

Planting Calendar for Salvia

Frost tolerance for salvia:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

You can plant salvia slightly earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

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

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Salem. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Salem 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 Salem you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your salvia in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Salem

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 Salem

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