One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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 Pittsburgh you can estimate when it's the best time to plant echinacea by reviewing 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 a bit earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Pittsburgh 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 really do well. 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 all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Pittsburgh. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Pittsburgh and it will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Pittsburgh last frost occurs after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your echinacea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Pittsburgh

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 Pittsburgh

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