One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

In Fairmont you can figure out when it's the best time to plant catharanthus by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Catharanthus

Frost tolerance for catharanthus:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

It's probably not a good idea to plant catharanthus until after all chance of frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant catharanthus in Fairmont 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 catharanthus and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your catharanthus may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your catharanthus indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Fairmont. You should expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Fairmont is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Fairmont it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your catharanthus in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Fairmont

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Fairmont

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