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

One way of getting a good idea when it's a good idea to plant echinacea is to look at the USDA zone info for El Mirage.

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 tend to make it in a tiny bit of cold which means that you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in El Mirage 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. If you wait any later than that and your echinacea may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your echinacea indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in El Mirage. You should expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for El Mirage and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in El Mirage you get surprised by a frost after February 15 be ready to cover your echinacea in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for El Mirage

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in El Mirage

You may be interested in your other planting guides for El Mirage.