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.

It's a good idea to estimate when it's possible to plant violas by looking at the USDA zone info for Urbana.

Planting Calendar for Violas

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

Violas can survive in quite a bit of 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 Urbana 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 few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Urbana. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Urbana is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Urbana it frosts late in the year after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to cover your violas if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Urbana

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 Urbana

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