One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

It's a good idea to figure out when it's a good idea to plant dahlia by looking at the USDA zone info for Ketchikan.

Planting Calendar for Dahlia

Frost tolerance for dahlia:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

You can not plant dahlia until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant dahlia in Ketchikan 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 dahlia and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your dahlia may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your dahlia indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Ketchikan. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Ketchikan may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Ketchikan you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your dahlia if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Ketchikan

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°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 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Ketchikan

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