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.

A way of getting a good idea when to plant echinacea is to use the USDA zone info for Radford.

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 are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Radford 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 grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Radford. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Radford is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Radford last frost occurs after April 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your echinacea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Radford

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°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 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Radford

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