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.

The USDA zone info for Marco Island can be reffered to in order to estimate when you can plant achimenes.

Planting Calendar for Achimenes

Frost tolerance for achimenes:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's probably not a good idea to plant achimenes until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant achimenes in Marco Island 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 achimenes and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your achimenes may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your achimenes indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is January 31 in Marco Island. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 30°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Marco Island is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Marco Island it frosts late in the year after January 31 be ready to protect your achimenes in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Marco Island

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 Low	30°F
Highest Expected Low	35°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 Marco Island

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Marco Island.