Cottonwood, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cottonwood, 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 Cottonwood 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 Cottonwood — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Cottonwood — the short answer
Cottonwood, Arizona: USDA zone 8b, about 258 days between hard freezes, across 18K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~258
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 18K 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 Cottonwood's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cottonwood's 258-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cottonwood
Each reading below is measured for Cottonwood itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCottonwood runs about 258 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
MeasuredCottonwood 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 Cottonwood is in
Cottonwood sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Cottonwood's own centroid rather than borrowed from Yavapai County.
What Grows in Cottonwood
Every plant below cleared Cottonwood's own zone 8b and its 258-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cottonwood?
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 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 18 — 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.
Documented around Cottonwood
Survey cells within 31 miles of Cottonwood checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 317 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cottonwood
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cottonwood. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- A-16-03 35DDCNitrate · 1.4 mi
- 82450Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- 82453Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 82447Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 82451Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- A-16-03 34AADNitrate · 1.6 mi
- 82448Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- PARCEL 406-43-010Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- 82452Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 82443Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 82446Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- 82444Nitrate · 1.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cottonwood'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 Cottonwood.
Total Sites
294
within ~10 miles of Cottonwood
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cottonwood
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cottonwood
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cottonwood, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Cottonwood — Mining (71 sites) and Nitrate (136 sites). 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.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Cottonwood
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 Cottonwood average
Your land is one point inside Cottonwood
Everything above resolves to Cottonwood as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 18K 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 Cottonwood Average
Cottonwood Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Cottonwood
- ●One soil character for all of Cottonwood
- ●Frost dates read at Cottonwood's scale: Mar 5 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cottonwood's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cottonwood
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cottonwood, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cottonwood averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cottonwood — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cottonwood average
How we know this about Cottonwood
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 Cottonwood’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 Cottonwood
When does frost risk typically end in Cottonwood?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cottonwood typically lands around Mar 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Cottonwood?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cottonwood typically arrives around Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 4, so the watching starts about Oct 19 — about 258 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cottonwood?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cottonwood sees about 258 frost-free days — roughly Mar 5 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 26 to Nov 4, about 223 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cottonwood?
The federal record around Cottonwood runs heavier than most — 294 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (136), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.4 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 Cottonwood?
From about Oct 19 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 18 (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 18. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cottonwood's scale — its 8b band and its 258-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cottonwood'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 Cottonwood’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cottonwood's own scale — its own ~258-day season between 28°F freezes, the 18,020 acres it covers and 294 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cottonwood's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cottonwood's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 5 and Nov 18 and the ~258-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 294 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cottonwood, the closest Nitrate record about 1.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cottonwood's boundary and the 18,020 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~258-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cottonwood's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Cottonwood 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 Cottonwood's 18,020 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 Cottonwood's 18,020 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cottonwood you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 18,020 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 1.4 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 Cottonwood-wide figureread your own land →