One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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 possible to plant mimulus is to consult the USDA zone info for Sanford.

Planting Calendar for Mimulus

Frost tolerance for mimulus:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

You should not plant mimulus until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant mimulus in Sanford is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant mimulus and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your mimulus may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your mimulus indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Sanford. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Sanford is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Sanford you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your mimulus if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Sanford

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 Sanford

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