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 monarda by checking out the USDA zone info for Blue Island.

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.

Monarda are barely cold tolerant which means that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in Blue Island 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 fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your monarda indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Blue Island. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Blue Island is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Blue Island you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your monarda in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Blue Island

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 Blue Island

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Blue Island.