Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You can determine when it's the best time to plant violas in Manchester by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Violas

Frost tolerance for violas:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Violas do ok in quite a bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant violas 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 violas and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your violas may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your violas indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Manchester the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Manchester is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Manchester you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your violas if you have a late frost.

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.