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.

In Clear Lake you can estimate when to plant echinacea by checking out 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 barely cold tolerant which means that you can start planting them slightly earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Clear Lake is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant echinacea and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your echinacea may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your echinacea indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Clear Lake. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Clear Lake 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 Clear Lake last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your echinacea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Clear Lake

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Clear Lake

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Clear Lake.