One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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.

You should be able to determine when you can plant achimenes by checking out the USDA zone info for Sarasota.

Planting Calendar for Achimenes

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

It's not a good idea to plant achimenes until after all chance of frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant achimenes in Sarasota 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 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 fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your achimenes indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on February 15 in Sarasota. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Sarasota is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Sarasota you get a frost after February 15 be ready to cover your achimenes in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Sarasota

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Sarasota

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