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.

A way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant poppies is to use the USDA zone info for Gatlinburg.

Planting Calendar for Poppies

Frost tolerance for poppies:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Since poppies do well in moderate cold you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant poppies in Gatlinburg is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant poppies and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your poppies may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your poppies indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Gatlinburg. You should expect an average low temperature of 0°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Gatlinburg and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Gatlinburg last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your poppies if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Gatlinburg

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 Gatlinburg

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