One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of figuring out when you can plant echinacea is to use the USDA zone info for Fond Du Lac.

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 do ok in moderate cold which means that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Fond Du Lac 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 grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your echinacea indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Fond Du Lac. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Fond Du Lac is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Fond Du Lac last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your echinacea in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Fond Du Lac

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 Fond Du Lac

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Fond Du Lac.