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.

A common way of determining when it's the best time to plant festuca is to use the USDA zone info for Tuscaloosa.

Planting Calendar for Festuca

Frost tolerance for festuca:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Festuca do well in moderate cold which means that you can start planting them earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant festuca in Tuscaloosa 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 festuca and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your festuca may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your festuca indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Tuscaloosa. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Tuscaloosa is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Tuscaloosa you get surprised by a frost after March 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your festuca in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Tuscaloosa

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 Tuscaloosa

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