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.

The USDA zone info for Elmira can be reffered to in order to estimate when it's the best time to plant gerbera.

Planting Calendar for Gerbera

Frost tolerance for gerbera:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Gerbera do ok in very little cold which means that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

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

The last month that you can plant gerbera and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your gerbera may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your gerbera indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Elmira. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Always keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Elmira and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Elmira last frost occurs after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your gerbera in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Elmira

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 Elmira

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