One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 estimate when it's the best time to plant monarda by looking at the USDA zone info for Rice Lake.

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 tend to make it in a tiny bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in Rice Lake 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 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 really do well. If you are starting your monarda indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on May 15 in Rice Lake. It might get as low as -30°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Rice Lake may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Rice Lake you get surprised by a frost after May 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your monarda if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Rice Lake

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-30°F
Highest Expected Low	-25°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -25°F.

Plants to Grow in Rice Lake

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Rice Lake.