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.

You can determine when it's a good idea to plant oriental poppies in Sandy by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Oriental poppies

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

Oriental poppies do well in mild cold which means that you can plant them a little earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant oriental poppies in Sandy 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 oriental poppies and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your oriental poppies may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your oriental poppies indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Sandy the average date of last frost happens on March 15. You should expect an average low temperature of 15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost may not be accurate from year to year because it is based on the USDA zone info for Sandy and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Sandy you get surprised by a frost after March 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your oriental poppies if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Sandy

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 Sandy

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