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.

In Rifle you can estimate when it's a good idea to plant festuca by referring to the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Festuca

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

Festuca are moderately cold tolerant which means that you can plant them a little bit earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant festuca in Rifle 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. Any later than that and your festuca may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your festuca indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Rifle is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Rifle you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so always be ready to cover your festuca in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rifle

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 Rifle

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