One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the 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 determine when it's the best time to plant monkey flower by reviewing the USDA zone info for California.

Planting Calendar for Monkey Flower

Frost tolerance for monkey flower:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

Monkey Flower do not do well in cold weather which tells us that you must wait until it warms up after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant monkey flower in California is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant monkey flower and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your monkey flower may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your monkey flower indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In California the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for California is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in California you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your monkey flower if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for California

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 California

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