When to Plant Lantana in Altoona, IA

One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 figuring out when it's possible to plant lantana is to examine the USDA zone info for Altoona.


Planting Calendar for Lantana

Frost tolerance for lantana: Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant: After all chance of frost has passed.

It's probably a bad idea to plant lantana until after the last frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant lantana
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant lantana
Probably not a good time to plant lantana

The earliest that you can plant lantana in Altoona is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant lantana and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your lantana may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your lantana indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Altoona the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Altoona is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Altoona it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your lantana if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Altoona

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-20°F
Highest Expected Low-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Altoona

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