One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 Manchester you can figure out when you can plant festuca by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Festuca

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

Since festuca are moderately cold tolerant you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Manchester. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Manchester is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Manchester you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your festuca if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Manchester

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 Manchester

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