One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of figuring out when it's possible to plant diascia is to examine the USDA zone info for Spirit Lake.

Planting Calendar for Diascia

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

Diascia do ok in a little bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant diascia in Spirit Lake 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 diascia and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your diascia may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your diascia indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Spirit Lake. You can expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Spirit Lake is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Spirit Lake there is a last frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your diascia if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Spirit Lake

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 Spirit Lake

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Spirit Lake.