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.

In New Roads you can figure out when it's possible to plant monarda by reviewing the USDA zone info.

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 can survive in very little cold which means that you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in New Roads 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. 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 few weeks earlier by starting your monarda indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on February 15 in New Roads. It might get as low as 20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost may not be accurate from year to year because it is based on the USDA zone info for New Roads and it is different every year. Since half of the time in New Roads it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to cover your monarda if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for New Roads

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	20°F
Highest Expected Low	25°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 25°F.

Plants to Grow in New Roads

You may be interested in your other planting guides for New Roads.