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.

One way of determining when you can plant ornamental grasses is to look at the USDA zone info for Manitou Springs.

Planting Calendar for Ornamental Grasses

Frost tolerance for ornamental grasses:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Since ornamental grasses are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant ornamental grasses in Manitou Springs is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant ornamental grasses and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your ornamental grasses may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your ornamental grasses indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Manitou Springs. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Manitou Springs is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Manitou Springs last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your ornamental grasses if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Manitou Springs

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 Manitou Springs

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Manitou Springs.