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.

A common way of getting a good idea when to plant echinacea is to consult the USDA zone info for Mentor.

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 a bit earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Mentor 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 fully mature. Starting your echinacea indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Mentor. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Mentor and it is different every year. Since half of the time in Mentor 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 Mentor

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 Mentor

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