Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of figuring out when you can plant echinacea is to check out the USDA zone info for Decatur.

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.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Decatur 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 fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Decatur. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Decatur is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Decatur last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your echinacea if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Decatur

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Decatur

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