When to Plant Echinacea in Markham, IL

One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

You can figure out when you can plant echinacea in Markham by referring to 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.

You can plant echinacea a bit earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant echinacea
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant echinacea
Probably not a good time to plant echinacea

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Markham 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 really do well. If you are starting your echinacea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Markham is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Markham there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to protect your echinacea in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Markham

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 Markham

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