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 Port Townsend should be reffered to in order to estimate when you can plant alyssum.

Planting Calendar for Alyssum

Frost tolerance for alyssum:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Alyssum are very cold tolerant which means that you can plant them much earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Port Townsend. It might get as low as 15°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Port Townsend is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Port Townsend last frost occurs after March 15 be ready to cover your alyssum if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Port Townsend

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 Port Townsend

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Port Townsend.