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 figure out when it's possible to plant echinacea in Winona 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 Winona 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 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 when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Winona. You can expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost may not be accurate from year to year because it is based on the USDA zone info for Winona and it will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Winona last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your echinacea in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Winona

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Winona

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