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 Solana Beach you can determine when it's a good idea to plant echinacea by referring to 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.

Since echinacea are barely cold tolerant you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Solana Beach 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 few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on January 31 in Solana Beach. It might get as low as 30°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Solana Beach and it is different every year. Half of the time in Solana Beach last frost occurs after January 31 so make sure that you are ready to protect your echinacea in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Solana Beach

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	30°F
Highest Expected Low	35°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 35°F.

Plants to Grow in Solana Beach

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Solana Beach.