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 making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant lavender is to use the USDA zone info for Petal.

Planting Calendar for Lavender

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

Lavender do ok in some cold which means that you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant lavender in Petal 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 lavender and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your lavender may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your lavender indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on March 15 in Petal. It might get as low as 15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Petal 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 Petal you get surprised by a frost after March 15 be ready to protect your lavender in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Petal

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Petal

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