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

You will be able to figure out when you can plant echinacea by reviewing the USDA zone info for Portland.

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 tells us that you can start planting them slightly earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Portland 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. If you wait any later than that and 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 March 15 in Portland. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Portland is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Portland it frosts late in the year after March 15 be ready to cover your echinacea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Portland

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°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 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Portland

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