One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

You should be able to determine when it's a good idea to plant lemon balm by looking at the USDA zone info for Palos Hills.

Planting Calendar for Lemon balm

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

Lemon balm tend to make it in a tiny bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Palos Hills. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Palos Hills is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Palos Hills last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your lemon balm in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Palos Hills

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Palos Hills

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Palos Hills.