One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for Longview can be reffered to in order to determine when it's possible to plant penstemon.

Planting Calendar for Penstemon

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

Penstemon are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which means that you can get them planted earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant penstemon in Longview 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 penstemon and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your penstemon may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your penstemon indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on March 15 in Longview. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Longview and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Longview you get surprised by a frost after March 15 be ready to cover your penstemon if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Longview

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 Longview

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