Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You can figure out when it's the best time to plant echinacea in Charleston by looking at 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.

Since echinacea do ok in moderate cold 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 Charleston 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. If you are starting your echinacea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Charleston the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Charleston 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 Charleston it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your echinacea if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Charleston

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Charleston

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