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.

By checking out the USDA zone info for Ludington it's a good idea to determine when you can plant monarda.

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 tend to make it in some cold which means that you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in Ludington 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 really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your monarda indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Ludington. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Ludington may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Ludington you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your monarda if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ludington

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 Ludington

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