One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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 common way of getting a good idea when it's a good idea to plant centaurea is to check out the USDA zone info for Federal Way.

Planting Calendar for Centaurea

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

Since centaurea are moderately cold tolerant you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant centaurea in Federal Way 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 centaurea and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your centaurea may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your centaurea indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Federal Way. You should expect an average low temperature of 15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Federal Way is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Federal Way last frost occurs after March 15 be ready to protect your centaurea in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Federal Way

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Federal Way

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Federal Way.