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.

A common way of determining when it's possible to plant violas is to use the USDA zone info for Kankakee.

Planting Calendar for Violas

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

Violas do well in pretty solid cold which means that you can plant them much earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant violas in Kankakee 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. If you wait any later than that and your violas may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your violas indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Kankakee. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Kankakee is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Kankakee you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your violas if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Kankakee

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 Kankakee

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