One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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.

A common way of figuring out when you can plant echinacea is to consult the USDA zone info for Iowa City.

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 tells us that you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Iowa City 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 grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Iowa City. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Iowa City is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Iowa City last frost occurs after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to cover your echinacea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Iowa City

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Iowa City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Iowa City.