One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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.

It's a good idea to estimate when to plant bee balm by using the USDA zone info for Norfolk.

Planting Calendar for Bee Balm

Frost tolerance for bee balm:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Bee Balm tend to make it in some cold which means that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant bee balm in Norfolk 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 bee balm and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your bee balm may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your bee balm indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Norfolk. You can expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Norfolk is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Norfolk it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your bee balm if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Norfolk

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°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 -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Norfolk

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