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.

A common way of getting a good idea when it's a good idea to plant monarda is to look at the USDA zone info for Yorktown.

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 one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in Yorktown 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 few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Yorktown. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Yorktown is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Yorktown you get a frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your monarda in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Yorktown

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 Yorktown

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