Unlikely — Zone Mismatch
nypa palm (zones 10-12) does not overlap with Arkansas's zone range (6b-8b). Growing outdoors is unlikely without significant protection.
2 zones short — what would close it
Nypa Palm is hardy to zone 10, and the warmest ground in Arkansas is zone 8 — 2 zones short. Planted in open ground it will not survive a Arkansas winter. To grow it here, grow nypa palm in an earth-sheltered greenhouse — its modeled 2.5-zone lift covers this gap.
An earth-sheltered greenhouse is the lift this needs. How a greenhouse changes what you can grow →
Zone math from 10-12 (plant) against 6-8 (Arkansas). Lift modeled by crop_engine.GREENHOUSE_ZONE_MODIFIER_BY_SUBTYPE['earth_sheltered'] (+2.5 zones) via api/fast_sections.py Unlock Engine v2.
Nypa Palm in Arkansas — the short answer
Nypa Palm in Arkansas: hardy in zones 10–12, full sun, against a state median of ~254 frost-free days.
- Plant zones
- 10-12
- Manual horticultural correction (source not retained); NC State Extension and Missouri Botanical Garden, with the remaining rows from other published sources or Growable Ground compilation
- Arkansas zones
- 6b-8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Frost window
- Mar 2 - Mar 20 – Nov 15 - Nov 23
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991-2020, 28°F
- Shortest county season
- 226 days
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020, county 28°F killing freeze
Plant data: Growable Ground Plant Database, compiled from FAO ECOCROP, USDA PLANTS and university Extension sources — per-field provenance varies and is published with the dataset.
Your yard isn't the whole zone.
Arkansas spans zones 6b-8b, but your yard sits in exactly one — and slope, tree cover, and cold-air pockets nudge it further. Enter your address and we'll score nypa palm against your parcel's actual hardiness, soil, and sun.
We read public map data for this spot — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Arkansas is not one climate
Arkansas’s winter-low ladder runs across 75 counties, from zone 7 in Benton County to zone 8.5 in Union County. That is 15°F between the two counties’ average coldest night — the difference between nypa palm overwintering in the ground and coming under cover.
The middle half of 75 counties runs 7.5–8 zones, with a median of 8 zones — a 1.5-zone span end to end.
Measured across 75 Arkansas counties. USDA PHZM 2023, per county. Quartiles are order statistics — every figure shown is a value a real county recorded, not an interpolation. Your own site sits somewhere inside this range; a parcel report resolves where.
Where Nypa Palm Stands in Arkansas
Nypa Palm is rated for zones 10–12 — a cold floor USDA puts at 30 to 40°F. No Arkansas county sits inside it, so in open ground this is a grown-under-cover plant here rather than a bed plant — which is a statement about Arkansas winters, not about nypa palm.
Below the zone 10 floor
75 counties
- Benton County · zone 7a
- Carroll County · zone 7a
- Fulton County · zone 7a
3 of 75 shown
Winter cold is the limit here — the same plant works in a container that comes under cover.
County hardiness zones: USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map (PHZM) 2023, per county. A zone is a 10°F band of average annual extreme minimum temperature, so the floor above is the band the plant's rating denotes, not a single measured kill point. Slope, shelter and cold-air drainage routinely move a site half a zone either way from its county figure — which is the part only your address resolves.
Zone Comparison
Nypa Palm Needs
- USDA Zones: 10-12
- Frost-Free Days: 365+
- Sun: Full Sun
Arkansas Has
- USDA Zones: 6b-8b
- Last Hard Freeze (28°F): Mar 2 - Mar 20
- First Hard Freeze (28°F): Nov 15 - Nov 23
- Annual Rainfall: 44-56 inches
- Common Soils: Silt loam, Sandy loam, Red clay
Plant Zone Range (zones 10-12)
Preferred Soil pH
Plant data: Growable Ground Plant Database, compiled from FAO ECOCROP, USDA PLANTS, and university Extension sources — per-field provenance varies and is published with the dataset. State data: USDA ARS PHZM 2023, NOAA Climate Normals, NRCS SSURGO.
When to Plant Nypa Palm in Arkansas
The frost window
Across Arkansas, the last spring hard freeze (28°F) clears between Mar 2 and Mar 20, and the first fall hard freeze lands between Nov 15 and Nov 23 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020). Counting from the latest last freeze to the earliest first freeze, that's a 240-day window you can count on — up to 266 days on a mild site in a kind year. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost, so tender transplants usually wait another 2-3 weeks.
Winter standing
Arkansas runs as cold as USDA zone 6, and no sourced winter-hardiness floor is on record for nypa palm, so this page does not state whether it overwinters here — and gives no fall establishment date on the strength of a guess. Whether nypa palm is a permanent planting or a replant-every-spring crop for you turns on your own zone within Arkansas; check its hardiness range against that before treating it as long-lived ground.
Timing tuned to sub-state frost dates — Carroll County, not the statewide average.
Frost window: NOAA Climate Normals 1991-2020. Plant timing fields: Growable Ground Plant Database — frost-free days from FAO ECOCROP, days to harvest from university Extension production guides, and growing-degree-day and chill-hour minimums that are compilation estimates rather than published figures. Your site's own frost dates can run earlier or later than the state range — a parcel report pins them down.
Growing Season Fit
The zone check says nypa palm does not survive a Arkansas winter in the ground. The season figures below measure a different question — whether it could finish a season here at all — and they only bear on Arkansas under protection.
Frost-free days
Nypa Palm wants 365+ frost-free days; a typical Arkansas site sees ~254 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020) — 111 days short of what it needs. A typical Arkansas season does not carry this crop to harvest outdoors, and a gap that size is not one an earlier sowing date or a faster cultivar closes; growing it here means growing it under cover.
GDD and chill-hour figures are computed from PRISM 1991-2020 monthly climate normals; frost-free days from NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020. Each is the state median across its counties (P25/P75 span the within-state spread). Hardiness-zone range is USDA PHZM 2023.
Soil + Drainage Fit
Nypa Palm tolerates a wide pH range (pH 5.5-8.5) — 3 units, acid ground through alkaline — so soil acidity is rarely what limits it in Arkansas. A soil test is still worth having, but for what else it tells you about this site, not to clear this plant. It will grow across that whole span, but it does best between pH 6.5 and 7.5 — worth knowing before you decide whether a Arkansas soil test result is a problem or just a number. Drainage requirement: poorly (saturated >50% of year). A soil-survey lookup (NRCS SSURGO) flags whether your specific site matches.
Your land, not the state average
Arkansas's soils run mostly silt loam, but SSURGO maps the series, texture, and drainage under your exact parcel. Nypa Palm needs about 19 inches of workable depth, so it is that horizon — not the surface — you are testing for. That map unit, not the state average, decides how nypa palm performs.
Check your parcel → Source: USDA NRCS SSURGO.
Plant pH requirements: FAO ECOCROP and USDA PLANTS, with the remaining rows from other published sources or Growable Ground compilation. Drainage: FAO ECOCROP, with the remaining rows from other published sources or Growable Ground compilation. Arkansas soil profile from USDA NRCS SSURGO. Site-specific verification: a 30-minute soil test from your local Extension lab.
Before you plant nypa palm for food
Anything you grow to eat takes up what is in the ground it grows in, so what is on record near you is worth knowing before nypa palm goes in. What follows is Arkansas’s documented federal record at state scale — a screening signal, not a soil test, and not a statement about any one lot.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Arkansas — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Arkansas — 21,012 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 88 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Arkansas carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources Checked
across Arkansas
Severity Distribution
across Arkansas
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Arkansas, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 5,938 sites across Arkansas. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What Else to Consider for Nypa Palm in Arkansas
Zone compatibility tells you about winter cold survival — but Arkansas growers also need to think about:
Hot, humid summers drive fungal and bacterial diseases
Heavy clay soils in parts of the Ozarks
Severe spring storms and hail risk
Growing nypa palm here specifically
Nypa Palm's medium root system wants open ground, yet a large share of Arkansas is SSURGO group-D soil — dense and slow-draining enough to stall it.
Double-dig or broadfork nypa palm's bed to open the restrictive layer so roots can run. How to handle it →
What to actually do about these — and the constraints that apply to every Arkansas grower, not just nypa palm — is covered on the Arkansas growing guide.
Timing shifts within Arkansas
Arkansas isn't one climate. In Carroll County, the last hard freeze (28°F) holds until about Mar 26 — roughly 16 days later than the recorded state median — so plant nypa palm to your county's window, not the statewide date.
Nypa Palm needs about 365 days of frost-free season to complete its cycle. No Arkansas county gives it that outdoors: even Lincoln County, the state’s longest season at 284 frost-free days, falls 81 days short — so it needs transplants, a short-season variety, or covered growing.
County last-freeze dates and frost-free day counts: NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991-2020), county 28°F freeze (earlier than the folk 32°F "last frost"). Nypa Palm's 365-day requirement: USDA PLANTS / Growable Ground plant database (minimum frost-free days). A parcel report resolves your address's own frost dates.
Arkansas Cooperative Extension
For Arkansas-specific cultivar recommendations, planting calendars, and pest pressure for nypa palm, the canonical source is University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service. Their fact sheets carry the local trial data we can't generalize across 50 states.
Common Questions About Growing Nypa Palm in Arkansas
When can I plant Nypa Palm in Arkansas?
Arkansas's last spring hard freeze (28°F) clears between Mar 2 and Mar 20, and the first fall hard freeze lands between Nov 15 and Nov 23 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020). No sourced winter-hardiness floor is on record for Nypa Palm, so this page does not state whether it overwinters in Arkansas and publishes no fall establishment date for it — check its hardiness range against your own zone before treating it as a permanent planting.
What hardiness zone is Nypa Palm grown in across Arkansas?
Arkansas spans USDA hardiness zones 6b-8b (USDA ARS PHZM 2023). Nypa Palm carries a range of zones 10-12, so the overlap zones are where outdoor growing is most reliable.
How many frost-free days does a typical Arkansas site have?
A typical Arkansas site sees ~254 frost-free days per year (derived from NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020). Nypa Palm needs 365+ frost-free days, so check whether your local microclimate runs above or below the state average before settling on a planting date. In cooler counties like Carroll, the freeze-free season runs shorter than the state average, so verify your own county's window.
How should I amend the soil for Nypa Palm in Arkansas?
Nypa Palm tolerates pH 5.5-8.5 and poorly (saturated >50% of year) drainage (FAO ECOCROP). That is a 3-unit span, acid ground through alkaline, so pH is rarely what limits this plant on a Arkansas site — amend for drainage and organic matter first.
Will Nypa Palm actually grow on my specific land in Arkansas?
State-level zone + climate data is a sketch. A Growable Ground parcel report scores nypa palm against your address's exact soil pH, drainage, sun, and frost-date data drawn from USDA SSURGO, NOAA, and PRISM — not state averages.
Check your specific parcel in Arkansas
State-level data is a sketch. Your Growable Ground report scores nypa palm against your parcel's exact soil, sun, drainage, and frost data — not zone averages.
Three things about your lot that Arkansas nypa palm averages can't show:
We read public map data around Arkansas — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Arkansas nypa palm average
Explore More
Growing guides for nypa palm
Explore Arkansas county by county
Arkansas carries 75 counties with their own USDA zone — a sample of the growing pages for nypa palm there:
Where else nypa palm grows
Nypa Palm's zone band crosses state lines — these are the states closest to Arkansas in winter climate where it also has a page, plus the far ends of its range. Each one re-answers the question with that state's own record.
More to grow in Arkansas
Arkansas has a growing page for 1,020 plants — a rotating sample of the rest of the shelf.
Analysis by the Growable Ground research team, grounded in USDA PLANTS, USDA NRCS SSURGO, NOAA Climate Normals (1991-2020), and named Cooperative Extension sources. How we know →
Cite this dataset
Kirchick, M. (2026). Growable Ground Plant Database [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21435643
Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0. DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21435643
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