Annual scabious · Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl, México, Mexico
When to sow annual scabious in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl
Main outdoor window
26 Jan - 23 Feb
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
9 February
In Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
26 Apr - 26 May
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Start indoors
15 Dec - 12 Jan
Eight weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Sow direct
26 Jan - 23 Feb
Two weeks before your last frost.
Plant out
2 Feb - 2 Mar
One week before your last frost.
In flower
26 Apr - 26 May
Annual scabious through the year
Against the frost risk in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl
Why these dates
Sow indoors eight weeks before the last frost and plant out a week before it, or sow direct two weeks before. Pick or deadhead every few days: this is a plant that stops the moment it is allowed to set seed, and keeps going for three months if it is not.
Hardy to about -8C, so young plants take a light frost and autumn sowing works in zone 8 and milder. Keeps flowering through the first autumn frosts.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Annual scabious are timed from 8 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 1 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl.
Hardiness is not the obstacle here. Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl is zone 9b, comfortably inside the range this crop is rated for, so an established plant should come through an average winter without protection.
The median frost-free season here is 281 days, against 90 to 120 days to first flower for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Nearby
Annual scabious in places close by
Also in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl
Other flowers to time
Growing annual scabious in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl
When should I plant annual scabious in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl?
Aim for 26 Jan - 23 Feb in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 14 Feb - 14 Mar - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will annual scabious be ready to harvest in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl?
Expect to start picking around 26 Apr - 26 May, based on 90 to 120 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will annual scabious tolerate?
Hardy to about -8C, so young plants take a light frost and autumn sowing works in zone 8 and milder. Keeps flowering through the first autumn frosts.