Resist the urge to plant the tender stuff early

It’s pretty easy to get caught up in our early taste of Spring like weather we had in February and now this week. Though the hard freeze Sunday morning at 27° should be a wake-up call for home gardeners. It’s still only early March and while the grass, trees and even flowers have already started to grow. It’s still way too early to think about planting the tender garden and flowers. That is unless you want to cover them several nights over the next few weeks. Or if you just want to replace the plants a few times from now until early mid-April.

I have a rule of a green thumb around here, plant the hardy stuff around Saint Patrick’s Day(March 17th) and plant the tender stuff around Tax Day(April 15th). I say this because history shows us that there will be a hard freeze and many touches of frost until about early April and sometimes even later.

Here’s a look at the earliest and latest freeze over 139 years of records here in Charlotte during the Spring/Winter. You’ll see our latest freeze ever was May 2, 1963, but even the record for the earliest last freeze is still right only as early as late February. So if you plant, now you are betting on a very rare event. You are gambling that we have already had our last freeze of the winter/spring season. While if you wait until April 15th for the tender stuff, you are playing the odd in your favor. In Charlotte, 97% of last freeze events have occurred before April 15th.

DATES OF LAST OCCURRENCE OF 32 OR LOWER
EARLIEST		TEMP	LATEST		TEMP
18-Feb	1997	31	2-May	1963	32
20-Feb	1880	28	25-Apr	2005	31
24-Feb	1905	30	21-Apr	1983	30
25-Feb	1921	30		1901	32
	1946	31		1953	32
1-Mar	1935	29		1956	31
	1938	27	19-Apr	2001	30

If you want to look just at the past 20 years in Charlotte here are the dates of the last freeze of the season.

Now it should be noted these are only the “official” freezes reported at the airport and at your house it could be colder than at the airport. Also, this doesn’t include frosts which can occur above 32° but aren’t as damaging to most plants. For that reason here are some maps that show the average date of our last frost/freeze. Remember this is the average date and there are always outliers.