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.

A common way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant trailing portulaca is to examine the USDA zone info for Buckeye.

Planting Calendar for Trailing Portulaca

Frost tolerance for trailing portulaca:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

Since trailing portulaca are not cold tolerant it is important to wait until after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant trailing portulaca in Buckeye 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 trailing portulaca and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your trailing portulaca may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your trailing portulaca indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Buckeye. You should expect an average low temperature of 20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Buckeye is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Buckeye you get surprised by a frost after February 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your trailing portulaca in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Buckeye

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	20°F
Highest Expected Low	25°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 25°F.

Plants to Grow in Buckeye

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