One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

It's a good idea to figure out when it's possible to plant echinacea by referring to the USDA zone info for Zone 4b.

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 some cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Zone 4b is April. However, you really should wait until May 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 really do well. If you are starting your echinacea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Zone 4b the average date of last frost happens on May 15. It might get as low as -25°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Zone 4b is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Zone 4b you get surprised by a frost after May 15 be ready to protect your echinacea in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Zone 4b

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-25°F
Highest Expected Low	-20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -20°F.

Plants to Grow in Zone 4b

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Zone 4b.