One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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.

One way of determining when it's the best time to plant centaurea is to look at the USDA zone info for Oxford.

Planting Calendar for Centaurea

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

Centaurea do well in moderate cold which means that you can start planting them earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant centaurea in Oxford 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 centaurea and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your centaurea may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your centaurea indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Oxford. You should expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Oxford is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Oxford you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your centaurea in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oxford

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

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

Plants to Grow in Oxford

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