One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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.

In Hope you can determine when it's the best time to plant echinacea by checking out the USDA zone info.

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.

Echinacea do ok in a tiny bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Hope 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 echinacea and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your echinacea may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your echinacea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Hope the average date of last frost happens on March 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 10°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Hope may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Hope there is a last frost after March 15 so always be ready to cover your echinacea in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Hope

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Hope

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