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

A common way of determining when it's a good idea to plant monarda is to refer to the USDA zone info for Olney.

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 are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in Olney 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. If you wait any later than that and your monarda may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your monarda indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Olney. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Olney is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Olney you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your monarda if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Olney

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Olney

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