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.

You can figure out when it's possible to plant trailing portulaca in Petal by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Trailing Portulaca

Frost tolerance for trailing portulaca:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of 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.

The earliest that you can plant trailing portulaca in Petal 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. Any later than that and your trailing portulaca may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your trailing portulaca indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Petal. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Petal is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Petal last frost occurs after March 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your trailing portulaca in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Petal

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°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 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Petal

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