One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the 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 Zone 6a should be reviewed to determine when it's the best time to plant osteospermum.

Planting Calendar for Osteospermum

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

Osteospermum do well in moderate cold which means that you can get them planted earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant osteospermum in Zone 6a 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 osteospermum and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your osteospermum may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your osteospermum indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Zone 6a. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Zone 6a is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Zone 6a it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your osteospermum in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Zone 6a

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°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 -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Zone 6a

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Zone 6a.