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.

A way of figuring out when to plant echinacea is to refer to the USDA zone info for Frankenmuth.

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 barely cold tolerant which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Frankenmuth 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. Any later than that and your echinacea may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your echinacea indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Frankenmuth. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Frankenmuth is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Frankenmuth you get a frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your echinacea if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Frankenmuth

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 Frankenmuth

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