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.

You will be able to determine when it's the best time to plant poppies by referring to the USDA zone info for Portsmouth.

Planting Calendar for Poppies

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

Poppies are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which tells us that you can get them planted earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant poppies in Portsmouth 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. Any later than that and your poppies may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your poppies indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Portsmouth. You can expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Portsmouth is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Portsmouth you get surprised by a frost after March 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your poppies if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Portsmouth

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 Portsmouth

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