Love-in-a-mist · Renca, Santiago Metropolitan, Chile
When to sow love-in-a-mist in Renca
Main outdoor window
24 Aug - 14 Sep
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
14 September
In Renca, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
2-22 Nov
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 Renca
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
24 Aug - 14 Sep
Three weeks before your last frost.
In flower
2-22 Nov
Love-in-a-mist through the year
Against the frost risk in Renca
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 Renca.
Hardiness is not the obstacle here. Renca 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 265 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 Renca
Other flowers to time
Growing love-in-a-mist in Renca
When should I plant love-in-a-mist in Renca?
Aim for 24 Aug - 14 Sep in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 14 Sep - 5 Oct - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will love-in-a-mist be ready to harvest in Renca?
Expect to start picking around 2-22 Nov, 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.