The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Chester you can determine when it's a good idea 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 just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Chester 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. Starting your echinacea indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Chester. You can expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Chester is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Chester you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your echinacea in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Chester

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°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 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Chester

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