One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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 way of determining when you can plant echinacea is to examine the USDA zone info for Madison.

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 very little cold which means that you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Madison 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. If you are starting your echinacea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Madison may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Madison there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your echinacea if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Madison

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 Madison

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