One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

The first opportunity to plant purple coneflower in Olean can be estimated by referring to the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Purple Coneflower

Frost tolerance for purple coneflower:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Since purple coneflower are barely cold tolerant 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 purple coneflower in Olean 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 purple coneflower and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your purple coneflower may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your purple coneflower indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Olean is an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Olean it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your purple coneflower if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Olean

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 Olean

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