Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Alma you can figure out when it's possible to plant oriental poppies by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Oriental poppies

Frost tolerance for oriental poppies:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Oriental poppies are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which means that you can plant them a little bit earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant oriental poppies in Alma 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 oriental poppies and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your oriental poppies may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your oriental poppies indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Alma the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Alma is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Alma there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your oriental poppies in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Alma

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Alma

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