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.

A common way of determining when to plant festuca is to look at the USDA zone info for Waukegan.

Planting Calendar for Festuca

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

Since festuca are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant festuca in Waukegan 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 fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your festuca indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Waukegan. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Waukegan is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Waukegan there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to cover your festuca in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Waukegan

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 Waukegan

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