Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of making a decision about when you can plant echinacea is to use the USDA zone info for Sanford.

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 get them planted just a bit earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Sanford 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 fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Sanford the average date of last frost happens on February 15. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Sanford is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Sanford last frost occurs after February 15 be ready to cover your echinacea in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Sanford

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 Sanford

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