One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You will be able to figure out when it's the best time to plant echinacea by looking at the USDA zone info for Orange Beach.

Planting Calendar for Echinacea

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

You can plant echinacea just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Orange Beach 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 echinacea and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your echinacea may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your echinacea indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Orange Beach. It might get as low as 20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Orange Beach is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Orange Beach it frosts late in the year after February 15 so always be ready to protect your echinacea if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Orange Beach

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	20°F
Highest Expected Low	25°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 25°F.

Plants to Grow in Orange Beach

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Orange Beach.