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When to Plant Trailing Portulaca in Santa Monica, CA

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

The USDA zone info for Santa Monica can be reviewed to figure out when it's possible to plant trailing portulaca.


Planting Calendar for Trailing Portulaca

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

It's a bad idea to plant trailing portulaca until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they do not do well in cold weather.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant trailing portulaca
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant trailing portulaca
Probably not a good time to plant trailing portulaca

The earliest that you can plant trailing portulaca in Santa Monica is February. However, you really should wait until March 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your trailing portulaca may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your trailing portulaca indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on January 31 in Santa Monica. It might get as low as 35°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Santa Monica is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Santa Monica you get surprised by a frost after January 31 be ready to protect your trailing portulaca in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Santa Monica

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)December 15
Lowest Expected Low35°F
Highest Expected Low40°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 35°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 40°F.

Plants to Grow in Santa Monica

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Santa Monica.