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.

The USDA zone info for Chesapeake should be used to figure out when to plant dipladenia.

Planting Calendar for Dipladenia

Frost tolerance for dipladenia:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

It's probably a bad idea to plant dipladenia until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they do not do well in cold weather.

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

Last Frost Date

In Chesapeake the average date of last frost happens on March 15. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Chesapeake is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Chesapeake there is a last frost after March 15 be ready to protect your dipladenia if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Chesapeake

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 Chesapeake

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