When to Plant Trailing Portulaca in Cedar Falls, IA

The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

It's a good idea to determine when it's the best time to plant trailing portulaca by referring to the USDA zone info for Cedar Falls.


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 probably a bad idea to plant trailing portulaca until after the last frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

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 Cedar Falls 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 trailing portulaca and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your trailing portulaca may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your trailing portulaca indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Cedar Falls. You should expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Cedar Falls is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Cedar Falls last frost occurs after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your trailing portulaca in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Cedar Falls

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-20°F
Highest Expected Low-15°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 -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Cedar Falls

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Cedar Falls.