One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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 making a decision about when it's possible to plant violas is to refer to the USDA zone info for Marquette.

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 tells us that you can plant them much earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant violas in Marquette 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your violas may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your violas indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Marquette. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Marquette is an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Marquette you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your violas if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Marquette

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 Marquette

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