One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

You can estimate when it's possible to plant echinacea in Whitewater by checking out the USDA zone info.

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 mild cold which tells us that you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Whitewater 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. If you wait any later than that and your echinacea may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your echinacea indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Whitewater is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Whitewater you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so always be ready to protect your echinacea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Whitewater

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 Whitewater

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