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.

The USDA zone info for Mckeesport should be reffered to in order to figure out when you can plant echinacea.

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 do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Mckeesport 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. 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

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

Since the USDA zone info for Mckeesport is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Mckeesport it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your echinacea in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Mckeesport

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 Mckeesport

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