The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of determining when to plant monarda is to look at the USDA zone info for Chino Valley.

Planting Calendar for Monarda

Frost tolerance for monarda:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

You can plant monarda slightly earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in Chino Valley 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 monarda and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your monarda may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your monarda indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Chino Valley. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Chino Valley is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Chino Valley it frosts late in the year after April 15 so always be ready to protect your monarda if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Chino Valley

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°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 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Chino Valley

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Chino Valley.