Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You should be able to figure out when it's the best time to plant petunias by looking at the USDA zone info for Helotes.

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 mild cold which means that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant petunias in Helotes 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. Any later than that and your petunias may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your petunias indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on March 15 in Helotes. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Helotes is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Helotes you get surprised by a frost after March 15 be ready to protect your petunias in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Helotes

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Helotes

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