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.

A way of estimating when it's a good idea to plant purple coneflower is to check out the USDA zone info for Redlands.

Planting Calendar for Purple Coneflower

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

Since purple coneflower are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant purple coneflower in Redlands 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 purple coneflower and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your purple coneflower may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your purple coneflower indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on February 15 in Redlands. You should expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Redlands is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Redlands last frost occurs after February 15 be ready to protect your purple coneflower if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Redlands

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 Redlands

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