One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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 estimating when it's the best time to plant echinacea is to examine the USDA zone info for Ironton.

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 just a tiny bit 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 Ironton 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 little bit earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Ironton. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Ironton and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Ironton you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so always be ready to cover your echinacea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ironton

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

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

Plants to Grow in Ironton

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