One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for Iron Mountain can be reffered to in order to estimate when it's possible to plant echinacea.

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 slightly earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Iron Mountain is April. However, you really should wait until May 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. Starting your echinacea indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on May 15 in Iron Mountain. You should expect an average low temperature of -30°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Iron Mountain may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Iron Mountain you get surprised by a frost after May 15 so always be ready to protect your echinacea if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Iron Mountain

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-30°F
Highest Expected Low	-25°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -25°F.

Plants to Grow in Iron Mountain

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Iron Mountain.