One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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.

You should be able to figure out when it's possible to plant monarda by using the USDA zone info for Cleveland.

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 are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in Cleveland 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 fully mature. If you are starting your monarda indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Cleveland is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Cleveland you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your monarda in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Cleveland

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 Cleveland

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