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 should be able to figure out when it's the best time to plant gaillardia by using the USDA zone info for Seneca.

Planting Calendar for Gaillardia

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

Gaillardia tend to make it in a tiny bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant gaillardia in Seneca 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 gaillardia and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your gaillardia may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your gaillardia indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Seneca. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Seneca and it will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Seneca it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your gaillardia in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Seneca

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 Seneca

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