One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of getting a good idea when it's possible to plant banana is to use the USDA zone info for Asheville.

Planting Calendar for Banana

Frost tolerance for banana:	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 banana until after the last frost because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant banana in Asheville 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 banana and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your banana may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your banana indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Asheville. You can expect an average low temperature of 0°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Asheville is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Asheville last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your banana in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Asheville

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

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

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

Plants to Grow in Asheville

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