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

One way of determining when it's possible to plant festuca is to examine the USDA zone info for Downingtown.

Planting Calendar for Festuca

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

Festuca are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which means that you can start planting them earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant festuca in Downingtown 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 grow to maturity. 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 Downingtown. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Downingtown and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Downingtown you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your festuca in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Downingtown

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 Downingtown

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