Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for Zone 8a can be reffered to in order to figure out when to plant bee balm.

Planting Calendar for Bee Balm

Frost tolerance for bee balm:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

You can plant bee balm a bit earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant bee balm in Zone 8a 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 bee balm and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your bee balm may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your bee balm indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Zone 8a. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Zone 8a and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Zone 8a it frosts late in the year after March 15 be ready to cover your bee balm in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Zone 8a

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 Zone 8a

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Zone 8a.