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.

You can figure out when it's the best time to plant monarda in Astoria by referring to the USDA zone info.

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 are barely cold tolerant which means that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in Astoria 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. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your monarda indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Astoria. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Astoria is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Astoria last frost occurs after March 15 be ready to cover your monarda if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Astoria

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Astoria

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