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.

The first opportunity to plant banana in Ottawa should be estimated by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Banana

Frost tolerance for banana:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's probably not a good idea to plant banana until after the last frost has passed because they require warm weather.

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

The last month that you can plant banana and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your banana may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your banana indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Ottawa. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Ottawa may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Ottawa you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your banana in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ottawa

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Ottawa

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