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.

A common way of estimating when it's possible to plant torenia is to examine the USDA zone info for Natchitoches.

Planting Calendar for Torenia

Frost tolerance for torenia:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's probably not a good idea to plant torenia until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant torenia in Natchitoches is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant torenia and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your torenia may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your torenia indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Natchitoches. It might get as low as 15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Natchitoches is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Natchitoches you get surprised by a frost after March 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your torenia in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Natchitoches

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°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 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Natchitoches

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