One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

The USDA zone info for Monticello can be reffered to in order to determine when you can plant violas.

Planting Calendar for Violas

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

Since violas are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant violas in Monticello 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 grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your violas indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Monticello. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Monticello is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Monticello last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your violas if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Monticello

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 Monticello

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