Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You should be able to determine when it's the best time to plant echinacea by checking out the USDA zone info for Lincoln.

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.

Echinacea are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather which tells us that you can start planting them slightly earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Lincoln 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 really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Lincoln. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Lincoln and it is different every year. Half of the time in Lincoln last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your echinacea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Lincoln

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Lincoln

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