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.

By referring to the USDA zone info for Grafton you should be able to figure out when it's possible to plant oriental poppies.

Planting Calendar for Oriental poppies

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

Oriental poppies are moderately cold tolerant which means that you can plant them earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant oriental poppies in Grafton 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 oriental poppies and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your oriental poppies may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your oriental poppies indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Grafton. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Grafton is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Grafton you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your oriental poppies in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Grafton

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°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 -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Grafton

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