Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Mattoon you can figure out when you can plant festuca by using the USDA zone info.

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 moderate cold which means that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant festuca in Mattoon 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your festuca may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your festuca indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Mattoon the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You should expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Mattoon is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Mattoon it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your festuca in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Mattoon

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Mattoon

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