The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Marion you can figure out 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 do ok in moderate cold which means that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant petunias in Marion 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your petunias may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your petunias indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Marion. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Marion is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Marion last frost occurs after March 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your petunias in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Marion

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 Marion

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