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

In Portales you can determine when it's possible to plant trailing portulaca by referring to 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.

Since trailing portulaca do not do well in cold weather you have to wait until after the last frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant trailing portulaca in Portales 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 really do well. 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 Portales. You can expect an average low temperature of 0°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Portales is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Portales it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your trailing portulaca in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Portales

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Portales

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