One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the 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 estimate when you can plant echinacea in Manistee 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.

Since echinacea are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Manistee 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 Manistee. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Manistee and it will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Manistee you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your echinacea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Manistee

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 Manistee

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