The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of estimating when you can plant violas is to examine the USDA zone info for Madison.

Planting Calendar for Violas

Frost tolerance for violas:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Since violas do well in cold you can plant them much earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

The last month that you can plant violas and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your violas may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your violas indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Madison the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Madison is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Madison you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your violas if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Madison

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Madison

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