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.

One way of figuring out when it's possible to plant monarda is to look at the USDA zone info for Pittsburgh.

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 start planting them slightly earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in Pittsburgh 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 fully mature. Starting your monarda indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Pittsburgh is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Pittsburgh you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your monarda if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Pittsburgh

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 Pittsburgh

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