One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out 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 common way of determining when it's possible to plant astilbe is to examine the USDA zone info for Alice.

Planting Calendar for Astilbe

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

You can plant astilbe a bit earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant astilbe in Alice 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 astilbe and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your astilbe may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your astilbe indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Alice. You should expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Alice and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Alice last frost occurs after February 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your astilbe if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Alice

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Alice

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