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.

A way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant festuca is to use the USDA zone info for Vinton.

Planting Calendar for Festuca

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

Festuca do ok in a little bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant festuca in Vinton 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 festuca and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your festuca may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your festuca indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Vinton the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Vinton is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Vinton you get a frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your festuca in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Vinton

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 Vinton

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