One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

It's possible to figure out when it's the best time to plant violas by reviewing the USDA zone info for Aurora.

Planting Calendar for Violas

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

Violas do ok in a bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them much earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant violas in Aurora 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 really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your violas indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Aurora. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Aurora may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Aurora you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your violas in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Aurora

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

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

Plants to Grow in Aurora

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