One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate 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.

In Mexia you can estimate when it's the best time to plant monarda by looking at 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.

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 Mexia 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. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your monarda indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on March 15 in Mexia. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Mexia is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Mexia there is a last frost after March 15 be ready to protect your monarda in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Mexia

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Mexia

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