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 way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant echinacea is to examine the USDA zone info for Desert Hot Springs.

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 moderate cold which tells us that you can plant them slightly earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Desert Hot Springs 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your echinacea may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your echinacea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Desert Hot Springs. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Desert Hot Springs and it is different every year. Since half of the time in Desert Hot Springs there is a last frost after February 15 be ready to cover your echinacea in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Desert Hot Springs

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 Desert Hot Springs

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Desert Hot Springs.