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.

One way of estimating when it's the best time to plant cuphea is to examine the USDA zone info for Columbia.

Planting Calendar for Cuphea

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant cuphea until after the last frost because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant cuphea in Columbia 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 cuphea and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your cuphea may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your cuphea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Columbia. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 0°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Columbia is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Columbia it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your cuphea in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Columbia

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Columbia

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