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.

The USDA zone info for Ephrata can be reviewed to determine when it's the best time to plant violas.

Planting Calendar for Violas

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

Since violas are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant violas in Ephrata 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. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your violas indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Ephrata. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Ephrata and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Ephrata last frost occurs after April 15 so always be ready to cover your violas if you have one of those late frosts.

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.