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.

One way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant oriental poppies is to examine the USDA zone info for Tomah.

Planting Calendar for Oriental poppies

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

You can plant oriental poppies a little bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant oriental poppies in Tomah is March. However, you really should wait until April 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 August. If you wait any later than that and your oriental poppies may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your oriental poppies indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on May 15 in Tomah. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -25°F.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Tomah and it will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Tomah you get surprised by a frost after May 15 so just be sure to be ready to cover your oriental poppies if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Tomah

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-25°F
Highest Expected Low	-20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -20°F.

Plants to Grow in Tomah

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