One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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.

One way of determining when it's the best time to plant echinacea is to check out the USDA zone info for Manheim.

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 slightly earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Manheim 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 really do well. Starting your echinacea indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Manheim. You should expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Manheim and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Manheim you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your echinacea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Manheim

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 Manheim

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