Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You will be able to estimate when it's the best time to plant echinacea by checking out the USDA zone info for Portland.

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.

Since echinacea do ok in moderate cold you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Portland. It might get as low as 0°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Portland is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Portland there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your echinacea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Portland

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 Portland

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