One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

A common way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant red hot pokers is to consult the USDA zone info for Poteau.

Planting Calendar for Red Hot Pokers

Frost tolerance for red hot pokers:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

You can plant red hot pokers earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant red hot pokers in Poteau 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 red hot pokers and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your red hot pokers may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your red hot pokers indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Poteau the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Poteau is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Poteau you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your red hot pokers in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Poteau

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 Poteau

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