One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for Brookings should be reviewed to estimate when to 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.

Echinacea are barely cold tolerant which means that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Brookings is April. However, you really should wait until May 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 grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is May 15 in Brookings. You should expect an average low temperature of -25°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Brookings may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Brookings last frost occurs after May 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your echinacea in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Brookings

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-25°F
Highest Expected Low	-20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -20°F.

Plants to Grow in Brookings

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