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.

The first opportunity to plant purple coneflower in Salinas should be figured out by referring to the USDA zone info.

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.

Purple Coneflower do well in mild cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant purple coneflower in Salinas 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 really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your purple coneflower indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on February 15 in Salinas. You should expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Salinas is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Salinas last frost occurs after February 15 so always be ready to protect your purple coneflower if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Salinas

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 Salinas

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