One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

In Philadelphia you can estimate when you can plant echinacea by using 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.

Echinacea do ok in moderate cold which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Philadelphia 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 really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Philadelphia. You can expect an average low temperature of 0°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Philadelphia is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Philadelphia it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your echinacea in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Philadelphia

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Philadelphia

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