One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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 Orange you can estimate when it's the best time to plant echinacea by looking at 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.

Since echinacea do ok in moderate cold you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Orange is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant echinacea and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your echinacea may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your echinacea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Orange the average date of last frost happens on February 15. You can expect an average low temperature of 20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Orange and it will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Orange there is a last frost after February 15 be ready to cover your echinacea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Orange

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	20°F
Highest Expected Low	25°F

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

Plants to Grow in Orange

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