Cordes Lakes, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cordes Lakes, 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 Cordes Lakes 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 Cordes Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cordes Lakes — the short answer
Cordes Lakes, Arizona: USDA zone 8b, about 295 days between hard freezes, across 7K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~295
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town 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 8b is Cordes Lakes's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cordes Lakes's 295-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cordes Lakes
Each reading below is measured for Cordes Lakes itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCordes Lakes runs about 295 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredCordes Lakes sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Cordes Lakes is in
Cordes Lakes sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Cordes Lakes's own centroid rather than borrowed from Yavapai County.
What Grows in Cordes Lakes
Every plant below cleared Cordes Lakes's own zone 8b and its 295-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cordes Lakes?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 7 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around Cordes Lakes
Survey cells within 31 miles of Cordes Lakes checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 302 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cordes Lakes
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cordes Lakes. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- A-11-02 25BDDNitrate · 2300 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR #10406Brownfields · 1.2 mi
- CORDES JUNCTION CHEVRON #207129Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- PILOT TRAVEL CENTER #1175Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- MOBIL STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- CHEVRON - CORDES JUNCTIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- ADOT - CORDES JUNCTION MAINTENANCE YARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- A-11-02 14CAANitrate · 1.8 mi
- John Henry MineMining · 2.0 mi
- John HenryMining · 2.0 mi
- Ferguson GroupMining · 2.2 mi
- Peter's PropertyMining · 2.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cordes Lakes'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 Cordes Lakes.
Total Sites
132
within ~10 miles of Cordes Lakes
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cordes Lakes
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cordes Lakes
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cordes Lakes, Mining runs higher than the national average — 83 sites within ~10 miles of Cordes Lakes. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Cordes Lakes
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 Cordes Lakes average
Your land is one point inside Cordes Lakes
Everything above resolves to Cordes Lakes 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 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 Cordes Lakes Average
Cordes Lakes Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Cordes Lakes
- ●One soil character for all of Cordes Lakes
- ●Frost dates read at Cordes Lakes's scale: Feb 15 to Dec 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cordes Lakes's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cordes Lakes
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cordes Lakes, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cordes Lakes averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cordes Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cordes Lakes average
How we know this about Cordes Lakes
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 Cordes Lakes’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 Cordes Lakes
When does frost risk typically end in Cordes Lakes?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cordes Lakes typically lands around Feb 15, 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 Mar 8.
When is the first frost in Cordes Lakes?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cordes Lakes typically arrives around Dec 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 23, so the watching starts about Nov 7 — about 295 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cordes Lakes?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cordes Lakes sees about 295 frost-free days — roughly Feb 15 through Dec 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 8 to Nov 23, about 260 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cordes Lakes?
The federal record around Cordes Lakes runs heavier than most — 132 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (83), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.4 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Cordes Lakes?
From about Nov 7 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 Dec 7 (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 Dec 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cordes Lakes's scale — its 8b band and its 295-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cordes Lakes'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 Cordes Lakes’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cordes Lakes's own scale — its own ~295-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,929 acres it covers and 132 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cordes Lakes's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cordes Lakes's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 15 and Dec 7 and the ~295-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 132 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cordes Lakes, the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cordes Lakes's boundary and the 6,929 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~295-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cordes Lakes's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Cordes Lakes checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cordes Lakes's 6,929 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Yavapai County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Yavapai County
- The growing challenges every Arizona grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Arizona
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Yavapai County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cordes Lakes's 6,929 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cordes Lakes you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,929 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 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 Cordes Lakes-wide figureread your own land →
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