One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 can estimate when it's possible to plant arabis in Santa Clara by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Arabis

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

Arabis do ok in quite a bit of cold which means that you can plant them earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant arabis in Santa Clara 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 arabis and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your arabis may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your arabis 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 March 15 in Santa Clara. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Santa Clara may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Santa Clara it frosts late in the year after March 15 be ready to protect your arabis if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Santa Clara

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 Santa Clara

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Santa Clara.