One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

You will be able to determine when it's a good idea to plant echinacea by checking out the USDA zone info for Dubuque.

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 means that you can start planting them slightly earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Dubuque 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. Any later than that and your echinacea may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Dubuque. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

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 Dubuque and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Dubuque last frost occurs after April 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your echinacea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Dubuque

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 Dubuque

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