One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

A common way of determining when to plant monarda is to use the USDA zone info for Suisun City.

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.

Since monarda do ok in moderate cold you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in Suisun City is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant monarda and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your monarda may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your monarda indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Suisun City the average date of last frost happens on February 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 25°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Suisun City is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Suisun City it frosts late in the year after February 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your monarda if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Suisun City

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°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 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Suisun City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Suisun City.