One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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.

A way of making a decision about when it's possible to plant echinacea is to examine the USDA zone info for Freeport.

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 barely cold tolerant you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Freeport 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your echinacea may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Freeport the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You should expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Freeport may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Freeport you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your echinacea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Freeport

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Freeport

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