One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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.

One way of determining when to plant echinacea is to refer to the USDA zone info for Urbandale.

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.

You can plant echinacea just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Urbandale 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 little bit earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Urbandale is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Urbandale you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your echinacea if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Urbandale

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 Urbandale

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