One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of figuring out when to plant bleeding hearts is to look at the USDA zone info for Sumter.

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.

You can plant bleeding hearts slightly earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant bleeding hearts in Sumter 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. If you wait any later than that and your bleeding hearts may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your bleeding hearts indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Sumter. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Sumter is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Sumter you get surprised by a frost after March 15 be ready to protect your bleeding hearts if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Sumter

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Sumter

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