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

You should be able to determine when it's possible to plant echinacea by referring to the USDA zone info for Columbus.

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.

Echinacea tend to make it in mild cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Columbus 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 fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Columbus. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Columbus is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Columbus last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your echinacea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Columbus

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°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 -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Columbus

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