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 way of determining when it's possible to plant violas is to refer to the USDA zone info for Lancaster.

Planting Calendar for Violas

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

You can plant violas earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant violas in Lancaster 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your violas may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your violas indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on March 15 in Lancaster. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Lancaster and it is different every year. Half of the time in Lancaster last frost occurs after March 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your violas in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Lancaster

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°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 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Lancaster

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