The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant festuca is to use the USDA zone info for Oak Harbor.

Planting Calendar for Festuca

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

You can plant festuca a bit earlier in the year because they are moderately cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant festuca in Oak Harbor 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 really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your festuca indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Oak Harbor. You should expect an average low temperature of 15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Oak Harbor is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Oak Harbor it frosts late in the year after March 15 be ready to protect your festuca in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oak Harbor

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 Oak Harbor

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Oak Harbor.