One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

One way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant echinacea is to check out the USDA zone info for Dickinson.

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 slightly earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Dickinson 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your echinacea may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is May 15 in Dickinson. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -30°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Dickinson is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Dickinson you get surprised by a frost after May 15 be ready to protect your echinacea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Dickinson

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 Dickinson

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