One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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 common way of estimating when to plant purple coneflower is to use the USDA zone info for Virginia Beach.

Planting Calendar for Purple Coneflower

Frost tolerance for purple coneflower:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

You can plant purple coneflower slightly earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant purple coneflower in Virginia Beach 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 purple coneflower and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your purple coneflower may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your purple coneflower indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Virginia Beach. You should expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Virginia Beach is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Virginia Beach you get a frost after March 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your purple coneflower if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Virginia Beach

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Virginia Beach

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Virginia Beach.