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.

In Willmar you can determine when it's a good idea to plant echinacea by looking at 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 just a tiny bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Willmar 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 really do well. If you are starting your echinacea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is May 15 in Willmar. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -25°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Willmar may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Willmar it frosts late in the year after May 15 be ready to protect your echinacea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Willmar

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 Willmar

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