One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Ephrata you can determine when it's a good idea to plant petunias by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Petunias

Frost tolerance for petunias:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Petunias are barely cold tolerant which means that you can plant them slightly earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant petunias in Ephrata is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant petunias and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your petunias may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your petunias indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Ephrata. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Ephrata is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Ephrata you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your petunias in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Ephrata

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 Ephrata

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