How to Grow and Care for Portulaca (Moss Rose)

With showy and colorful rose-like flowers from June to first frost, Portulaca grandiflora, or moss rose, is a favorite for its easy cultivation and fast growth.

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A bright and beautiful sun-loving plant for borders, containers, and edging, these tough succulents are also drought and heat tolerant – which makes them an excellent choice for rock gardens and xeriscapes or as a ground cover for hot, dry areas.

The single or double flowers come in pastel shades or intense hues of mauve, orange, pink, red, white, or yellow with petals of a delicate crinkly texture.

Closely related to common purslane (P. oleracea), portulaca is highly useful in poor soils where other plants struggle, and handy as a fast grower for filling in bare spots.

And it’s highly attractive to pollinators such as bees and butterflies but is left alone by the likes of deer and rabbits.

Resilient and built for heat, are you thinking your garden needs some moss rose this summer? 

Then join us now for all the details on how to grow portulaca!

Here’s everything we’ll go over up ahead:

Moss rose, Portulaca grandiflora, is a succulent species of flowers in the Portulacaceae family.

Multi-branched and low-growing, the rose-shaped flowers grow on terminal tips and are held above prostrate stems in small clusters.

The light green, needle-like leaves are plump and fleshy for water storage.

Flowers measure up to one and a half inches wide with single or double, crepey petals surrounding clusters of bright yellow anthers.

Moss rose comes in richly saturated colors of fuchsia, magenta,