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 Oxford can be reffered to in order to figure out when it's a good idea to plant cardinal flower.

Planting Calendar for Cardinal Flower

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

It's not a good idea to plant cardinal flower until after the last frost has passed because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant cardinal flower in Oxford 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 cardinal flower and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your cardinal flower may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your cardinal flower indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Oxford. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Oxford is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Oxford you get a frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your cardinal flower if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oxford

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 Oxford

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