When to Plant Violas in San Rafael, CA

The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us figure out 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 figuring out when it's possible to plant violas is to consult the USDA zone info for San Rafael.


Planting Calendar for Violas

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

You can plant violas quite a bit earlier in the year because they are very cold tolerant.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant violas
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant violas
Probably not a good time to plant violas

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

The last month that you can plant violas and expect a good harvest is probably October. Any later than that and your violas may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your violas indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on January 31 in San Rafael. It might get as low as 30°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for San Rafael is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in San Rafael you get surprised by a frost after January 31 be ready to protect your violas in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for San Rafael

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)December 15
Lowest Expected Low30°F
Highest Expected Low35°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 35°F.

Plants to Grow in San Rafael

You may be interested in your other planting guides for San Rafael.