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 estimate when it's a good idea to plant trailing portulaca in East Alton by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Trailing Portulaca

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

Trailing Portulaca do not do well in cold weather which means that it's necessary to wait until it warms up after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant trailing portulaca in East Alton 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. 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. If you are starting your trailing portulaca indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in East Alton. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for East Alton is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in East Alton last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your trailing portulaca if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for East Alton

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°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 -5°F.

Plants to Grow in East Alton

You may be interested in your other planting guides for East Alton.