Morrison Crossroads, Alabama, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Morrison Crossroads, 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 Morrison Crossroads 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 Morrison Crossroads — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Morrison Crossroads — the short answer
Morrison Crossroads, Alabama: USDA zone 8a, about 241 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- 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 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~241
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Morrison Crossroads's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Morrison Crossroads's 241-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Morrison Crossroads
Each reading below is measured for Morrison Crossroads itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMorrison Crossroads runs about 241 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
MeasuredMorrison Crossroads 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 Morrison Crossroads is in
Morrison Crossroads sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Morrison Crossroads's own centroid rather than borrowed from Randolph County.
What Grows in Morrison Crossroads
Every plant below cleared Morrison Crossroads's own zone 8a and its 241-day season. Each card opens that plant's Alabama profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Morrison Crossroads?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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 15 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
What's on the federal record near Morrison Crossroads
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Morrison Crossroads. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NELSON FARMCAFO · 1600 ft
- CROSSROADS GENERAL STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- COUNTRY CORNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- REAVES GROCERY, LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- OWEN FARMCAFO · 1.0 mi
- S & S CHEMICALS INCToxics Release Inventory · 1.2 mi
- HILL FARMCAFO · 1.3 mi
- KEY FARMCAFO · 1.3 mi
- LITTLE MAN POULTRY FARMCAFO · 1.3 mi
- TAAMA FARMCAFO · 2.0 mi
- JOHNSON FARMSCAFO · 2.0 mi
- COSPER FARMSCAFO · 2.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Morrison Crossroads'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 Morrison Crossroads.
Total Sites
111
within ~10 miles of Morrison Crossroads
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Morrison Crossroads
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Morrison Crossroads
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Morrison Crossroads, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Morrison Crossroads — CAFO (38 sites) and Mining (16 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Morrison Crossroads
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 Morrison Crossroads average
Your land is one point inside Morrison Crossroads
Everything above resolves to Morrison Crossroads as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 town 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 Morrison Crossroads Average
Morrison Crossroads Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Morrison Crossroads
- ●One soil character for all of Morrison Crossroads
- ●Frost dates read at Morrison Crossroads's scale: Mar 19 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Morrison Crossroads's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Morrison Crossroads
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Morrison Crossroads, Alabama — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Morrison Crossroads averages can't show:
We read public map data around Morrison Crossroads — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Morrison Crossroads average
How we know this about Morrison Crossroads
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Morrison Crossroads’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Morrison Crossroads
When does frost risk typically end in Morrison Crossroads?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Morrison Crossroads 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 Morrison Crossroads?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Morrison Crossroads typically arrives around Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 1, so the watching starts about Oct 16 — about 241 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Morrison Crossroads?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Morrison Crossroads sees about 241 frost-free days — roughly Mar 19 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 9 to Nov 1, about 206 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Morrison Crossroads?
The federal record around Morrison Crossroads shows 111 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (48), the nearest CAFO record about 0.3 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Morrison Crossroads?
From about Oct 16 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 15 (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 15. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Morrison Crossroads's scale — its 8a band and its 241-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Morrison Crossroads'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 Morrison Crossroads’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Morrison Crossroads's own scale — its own ~241-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,322 acres it covers and 111 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Morrison Crossroads's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Morrison Crossroads's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 19 and Nov 15 and the ~241-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 111 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Morrison Crossroads, the closest CAFO record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Morrison Crossroads's boundary and the 3,322 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~241-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Morrison Crossroads's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Morrison Crossroads's 3,322 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Randolph County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Randolph 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 Randolph County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Morrison Crossroads's 3,322 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Morrison Crossroads you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,322 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest CAFO record about 0.3 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 Morrison Crossroads-wide figureread your own land →
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