One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate 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.

In Austin you can figure out when it's a good idea to plant echinacea by using 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 do ok in moderate cold you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Austin 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. Any later than that and your echinacea may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your echinacea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on May 15 in Austin. It might get as low as -25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Austin is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Austin last frost occurs after May 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your echinacea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Austin

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-25°F
Highest Expected Low	-20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -20°F.

Plants to Grow in Austin

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