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.

The first opportunity to plant echinacea in Indianola can be figured out by looking at 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 can survive in a tiny bit of cold which means that you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Indianola 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else 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

In Indianola the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Indianola is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Indianola last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your echinacea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Indianola

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 Indianola

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