Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. 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 figure out when it's the best time to plant festuca by referring to the USDA zone info for Darien.

Planting Calendar for Festuca

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

Since festuca do well in moderate cold you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant festuca in Darien 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. If you wait 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 Darien the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Darien is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Darien you get a frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your festuca if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Darien

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Darien

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