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.

In Sidney 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 slightly earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Sidney 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 fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Sidney. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Sidney may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Sidney there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to cover your echinacea in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Sidney

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Sidney

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