The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You can estimate when you can plant echinacea in Salem 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.

You can plant echinacea slightly earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Salem 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. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Salem. It might get as low as 0°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Salem is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Salem there is a last frost after April 15 so always be ready to protect your echinacea in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Salem

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Salem

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