One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of making a decision about when it's the best time to plant pansies is to use the USDA zone info for West Bend.

Planting Calendar for Pansies

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

You can plant pansies earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather.

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

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in West Bend. It might get as low as -20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for West Bend is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in West Bend you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your pansies in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for West Bend

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

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

Plants to Grow in West Bend

You may be interested in your other planting guides for West Bend.