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.

A common way of making a decision about when you can plant trailing portulaca is to consult the USDA zone info for Carnegie.

Planting Calendar for Trailing Portulaca

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

Trailing Portulaca require warm weather which means that you need to wait until it warms up after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant trailing portulaca in Carnegie 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 fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your trailing portulaca indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Carnegie the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You should expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Carnegie may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Carnegie you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your trailing portulaca in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Carnegie

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

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

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

Plants to Grow in Carnegie

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