One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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.

One way of estimating when it's possible to plant petunias is to examine the USDA zone info for West Plains.

Planting Calendar for Petunias

Frost tolerance for petunias:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Petunias are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather which tells us that you can start planting them slightly earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant petunias in West Plains is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant petunias and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your petunias may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your petunias indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in West Plains. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for West Plains is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in West Plains last frost occurs after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your petunias if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for West Plains

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in West Plains

You may be interested in your other planting guides for West Plains.