One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the 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 a good idea to plant violets is to examine the USDA zone info for Lafayette.

Planting Calendar for Violets

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

Since violets are moderately cold tolerant you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant violets in Lafayette 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 violets and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your violets may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your violets indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Lafayette the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of 0°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Lafayette is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Lafayette there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to protect your violets in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Lafayette

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Lafayette

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