Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Ontario you can determine when it's possible to plant echinacea by looking at the USDA zone info.

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 barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Ontario 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. Any later than that and your echinacea may not have a chance to fully mature. 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

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Ontario. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Ontario is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Ontario you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your echinacea in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Ontario

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 Ontario

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