One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

In Hercules you can estimate when it's the best time to plant echinacea by looking at 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 are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Hercules 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 little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Hercules the average date of last frost happens on February 15. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Hercules may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Hercules there is a last frost after February 15 so always be ready to protect your echinacea if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Hercules

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 Hercules

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