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.

By using the USDA zone info for Athens you should be able to figure out when it's the best time to plant festuca.

Planting Calendar for Festuca

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

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

The earliest that you can plant festuca in Athens 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 festuca and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your festuca may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your festuca indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Athens. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Athens is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Athens it frosts late in the year after March 15 be ready to cover your festuca in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Athens

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 Athens

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