Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine 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 figuring out when it's a good idea to plant bleeding hearts is to examine the USDA zone info for Columbia.

Planting Calendar for Bleeding Hearts

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

Since bleeding hearts do ok in moderate cold you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant bleeding hearts in Columbia 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 bleeding hearts and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your bleeding hearts may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your bleeding hearts indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Columbia. You should expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Columbia may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Columbia there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your bleeding hearts in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Columbia

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°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 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Columbia

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