One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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 earliest that you can plant trailing portulaca in Joliet should be figured out by looking at 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 when the weather gets warmer.

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

The earliest that you can plant trailing portulaca in Joliet 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. Starting your trailing portulaca indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Joliet. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Joliet is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Joliet it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your trailing portulaca if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Joliet

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Joliet

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