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 Alliance you can figure out when you can plant catharanthus by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Catharanthus

Frost tolerance for catharanthus:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's not a good idea to plant catharanthus until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Alliance. You should expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Alliance is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Alliance you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your catharanthus if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Alliance

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Alliance

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