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.

One way of getting a good idea when to plant festuca is to look at the USDA zone info for Hillsdale.

Planting Calendar for Festuca

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

Festuca are moderately cold tolerant which tells us that you can start planting them earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant festuca in Hillsdale 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 little bit earlier by starting your festuca indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Hillsdale is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Hillsdale you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your festuca in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Hillsdale

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 Hillsdale

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