One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Amsterdam you can figure out when it's a good idea to plant echinacea by using 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 a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Amsterdam 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. If you are starting your echinacea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Amsterdam. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Amsterdam is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Amsterdam there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to protect your echinacea in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Amsterdam

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 Amsterdam

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