Viola · Rabat, Rabat-Salé-Kénitra, Morocco
When to sow violas in Rabat
Main outdoor window
not outdoors here
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
no spring frost
In Rabat, on your chosen risk.
First autumn frost
no autumn frost
The far end of the outdoor season.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Rabat
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Violas through the year
Against the frost risk in Rabat
Why these dates
Start indoors twelve weeks before the last frost and plant out four weeks before it, or sow in midsummer for autumn planting and winter flowers. Shear back by half in midsummer if it looks exhausted and it will recover for autumn.
Hardy to about -18C, more so than the pansy, and flowers through mild winters. Handles summer heat slightly better too, though it still pauses in the hottest weeks.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Violas are timed from 12 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 4 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Rabat.
Rabat sits in zone 11b, which is milder than this crop wants, and a winter that never really arrives is its own problem. The dates below still describe the right time of year; the open question is survival rather than timing.
Also in Rabat
Other flowers to time
Growing violas in Rabat
How much frost will violas tolerate?
Hardy to about -18C, more so than the pansy, and flowers through mild winters. Handles summer heat slightly better too, though it still pauses in the hottest weeks.