Centre, Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Centre, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Centre lot. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Centre — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Centre — the short answer
Centre, Alabama: USDA zone 8a, about 238 days between hard freezes, across 7K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~238
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 7K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 8a is Centre's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Centre's 238-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Centre
Each reading below is measured for Centre itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCentre runs about 238 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredCentre sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Centre is in
Centre sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Centre's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cherokee County.
What Grows in Centre
Every plant below cleared Centre's own zone 8a and its 238-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Centre?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Centre
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Centre. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CENTRE AMOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- CENTRE TELEPHONE EXCHANGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- ARMORY CO A 2D BN 152D ARUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- HUGH JORDAN SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- CENTRE MIDDLE SCHOOLBrownfields · 1600 ft
- SHORTYS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- CENTRE TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- MAPCO #5142 PUMP HOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #4863Brownfields · 2200 ft
- MAY'S GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- RAYBORN'S STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- MINNOW BUCKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Centre's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Centre.
Total Sites
116
within ~10 miles of Centre
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Centre
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Centre
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Centre, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Centre — CAFO (20 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (74 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Centre
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Centre average
Your land is one point inside Centre
Everything above resolves to Centre as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 7K acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at city scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better local average.
Your Lot vs the Centre Average
Centre Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Centre
- ●One soil character for all of Centre
- ●Frost dates read at Centre's scale: Mar 19 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Centre's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Centre
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Centre, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Centre averages can't show:
We read public map data around Centre — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Centre average
How we know this about Centre
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Centre’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Centre
When does frost risk typically end in Centre?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Centre typically lands around Mar 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Apr 9.
When is the first frost in Centre?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Centre typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 238 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Centre?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Centre sees about 238 frost-free days — roughly Mar 19 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 9 to Oct 29, about 203 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Centre?
The federal record around Centre is a meaningful one — 116 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (74), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Centre?
From about Oct 13 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Centre's scale — its 8a band and its 238-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Centre's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Centre’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Centre's own scale — its own ~238-day season between 28°F freezes, the 7,490 acres it covers and 116 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Centre's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Centre's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 19 and Nov 12 and the ~238-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 116 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Centre, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Centre's boundary and the 7,490 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~238-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Centre's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Centre's 7,490 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cherokee County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cherokee County
- The growing challenges every Alabama grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Alabama
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Cherokee County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Centre's 7,490 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Centre you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 7,490 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Centre-wide figureread your own land →
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