When to Plant Echinacea in Orange, VA

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

A common way of getting a good idea when it's possible to plant echinacea is to consult the USDA zone info for Orange.


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.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant echinacea
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant echinacea
Probably not a good time to plant echinacea

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Orange 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. Any later than that and 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 couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Orange. You should expect an average low temperature of 0°F in the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Orange is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Orange you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your echinacea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Orange

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 Low0°F
Highest Expected Low5°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 Orange

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