One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You can determine when it's the best time to plant petunias in Jefferson by reviewing the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Petunias

Frost tolerance for petunias:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Petunias do ok in moderate cold which tells us that you can plant them slightly earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant petunias in Jefferson is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant petunias and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your petunias may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your petunias indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on March 15 in Jefferson. You should expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Jefferson is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Jefferson you get a frost after March 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your petunias in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Jefferson

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°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 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Jefferson

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Jefferson.