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.

It's a good idea to figure out when you can plant echinacea by referring to the USDA zone info for Clarendon Hills.

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 one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather which means that you can plant them slightly earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Clarendon Hills 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 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 Clarendon Hills. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Clarendon Hills is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Clarendon Hills it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your echinacea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Clarendon Hills

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 Clarendon Hills

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Clarendon Hills.