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.

A common way of estimating when you can plant festuca is to look at the USDA zone info for Oakland.

Planting Calendar for Festuca

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

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

The earliest that you can plant festuca in Oakland 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. If you wait any later than that and your festuca may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your festuca indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Oakland is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Oakland last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your festuca if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oakland

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 Oakland

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