Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. 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 it's possible to plant oriental poppies is to refer to the USDA zone info for Bay City.

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 Bay City 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. 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

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Bay City. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Bay City and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Bay City it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your oriental poppies in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Bay City

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 Bay City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Bay City.