One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of figuring out when you can plant echinacea is to refer to the USDA zone info for Oneonta.

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.

Echinacea are barely cold tolerant which means that you can start planting them slightly earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Oneonta 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. 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

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

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Oneonta is just an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Oneonta last frost occurs after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your echinacea in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oneonta

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 Oneonta

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