One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant hardy hibiscus is to examine the USDA zone info for Newport.

Planting Calendar for Hardy Hibiscus

Frost tolerance for hardy hibiscus:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

You can plant hardy hibiscus quite a bit earlier in the year because they do well in cold.

The earliest that you can plant hardy hibiscus in Newport 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 hardy hibiscus and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your hardy hibiscus may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your hardy hibiscus indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Newport is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Newport last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your hardy hibiscus if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Newport

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 Newport

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