Love-in-a-mist · Qingyuan, Guangdong, China
When to sow love-in-a-mist in Qingyuan
Main outdoor window
31 Dec - 21 Jan
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
21 January
In Qingyuan, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
11-31 Mar
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 Qingyuan
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.
Sow direct
31 Dec - 21 Jan
Three weeks before your last frost.
In flower
11-31 Mar
Love-in-a-mist through the year
Against the frost risk in Qingyuan
Why these dates
Sow direct three weeks before the last frost and thin to 20cm. It flowers for about six weeks and then goes to seed, so sow a second batch three weeks later if you want it into late summer. Leave the last flowers to pod and it will sow itself for next year.
Hardy to about -10C, so an autumn sowing overwinters easily in zone 7 and warmer and flowers in late spring. Short-lived in heat and finished by midsummer in a hot climate.
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. Love-in-a-mist are timed for direct sowing 3 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Qingyuan.
Hardiness is not the obstacle here. Qingyuan is zone 10a, 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 335 days, against 70 to 90 days to first flower for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Qingyuan
Other flowers to time
Growing love-in-a-mist in Qingyuan
When should I plant love-in-a-mist in Qingyuan?
Aim for 31 Dec - 21 Jan in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 18 Jan - 8 Feb - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will love-in-a-mist be ready to harvest in Qingyuan?
Expect to start picking around 11-31 Mar, based on 70 to 90 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will love-in-a-mist tolerate?
Hardy to about -10C, so an autumn sowing overwinters easily in zone 7 and warmer and flowers in late spring. Short-lived in heat and finished by midsummer in a hot climate.