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.

One way of determining when it's a good idea to plant monarda is to look at the USDA zone info for La Porte.

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 just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in La Porte 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 little bit earlier by starting your monarda indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for La Porte may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in La Porte 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 La Porte

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 La Porte

You may be interested in your other planting guides for La Porte.