The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of figuring out when it's possible to plant monarda is to use the USDA zone info for East Orange.

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.

You can plant monarda just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in East Orange 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. 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 little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

In East Orange the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as 0°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for East Orange is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in East Orange it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your monarda in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for East Orange

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

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

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

Plants to Grow in East Orange

You may be interested in your other planting guides for East Orange.