When to Plant Portulaca in Oelwein, IA

One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 can figure out when it's possible to plant portulaca in Oelwein by checking out the USDA zone info.


Planting Calendar for Portulaca

Frost tolerance for portulaca: Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant: After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

It's probably a bad idea to plant 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 portulaca
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant portulaca
Probably not a good time to plant portulaca

The earliest that you can plant portulaca in Oelwein 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 portulaca and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your portulaca may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your portulaca indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Oelwein. You can expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Oelwein is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Oelwein you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your portulaca if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Oelwein

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 Oelwein

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