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 way of estimating when it's possible to plant monarda is to look at the USDA zone info for South Haven.

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.

Since monarda are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather 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 South Haven 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 fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your monarda indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in South Haven. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for South Haven is an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in South Haven there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to protect your monarda if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for South Haven

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in South Haven

You may be interested in your other planting guides for South Haven.