One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

A common way of figuring out when it's possible to plant fountain grass is to refer to the USDA zone info for Elkins.

Planting Calendar for Fountain Grass

Frost tolerance for fountain grass:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Since fountain grass are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

Last Frost Date

In Elkins the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Elkins is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Elkins it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your fountain grass in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Elkins

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°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 -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Elkins

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