One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

In Gainesville you can determine when it's possible to plant violas by referring to the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Violas

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

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

The earliest that you can plant violas in Gainesville 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else 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 Gainesville. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Always keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Gainesville and it is different every year. Half of the time in Gainesville there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your violas in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Gainesville

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Gainesville

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