Flowing Springs, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 Flowing Springs, 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 Flowing Springs 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 Flowing Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Flowing Springs — the short answer
Flowing Springs, Arizona: USDA zone 8a, about 232 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- 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
- ~232
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Flowing Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Flowing Springs's 232-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Flowing Springs
Each reading below is measured for Flowing Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFlowing Springs runs about 232 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
MeasuredFlowing Springs 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 Flowing Springs is in
Flowing Springs sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Flowing Springs's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gila County.
What Grows in Flowing Springs
Every plant below cleared Flowing Springs's own zone 8a and its 232-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Flowing Springs?
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 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (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. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Flowing Springs
Survey cells within 31 miles of Flowing Springs checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 345 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Flowing Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Flowing Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Luper ClaimsMining · 0.9 mi
- A-11-10 11ABDNitrate · 2.2 mi
- A-11-10 23AABNitrate · 2.7 mi
- A-11-10 23AAD3Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- A-11-10 23ADCNitrate · 2.9 mi
- SPEEDWAY STORE #2890Underground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- HOME DEPOT 0422Brownfields · 3.1 mi
- Grand PrizeMining · 3.3 mi
- Grand Prize MineMining · 3.5 mi
- PAYSON AIRPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- PAYSON MARKETPLACEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- APD HEADQUARTERSBrownfields · 3.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Flowing Springs'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 Flowing Springs.
Total Sites
217
within ~10 miles of Flowing Springs
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Flowing Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Flowing Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Flowing Springs, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Flowing Springs — Mining (28 sites) and Nitrate (122 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Flowing Springs
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 Flowing Springs average
Your land is one point inside Flowing Springs
Everything above resolves to Flowing Springs as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Flowing Springs Average
Flowing Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Flowing Springs
- ●One soil character for all of Flowing Springs
- ●Frost dates read at Flowing Springs's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Flowing Springs's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Flowing Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Flowing Springs, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Flowing Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Flowing Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Flowing Springs average
How we know this about Flowing Springs
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 Flowing Springs’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 Flowing Springs
When does frost risk typically end in Flowing Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Flowing Springs typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Flowing Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Flowing Springs 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 232 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Flowing Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Flowing Springs sees about 232 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Nov 1, about 197 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Flowing Springs?
The federal record around Flowing Springs is a meaningful one — 217 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (122), the nearest Mining record about 0.9 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 Flowing Springs?
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 Flowing Springs's scale — its 8a band and its 232-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Flowing Springs'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 Flowing Springs’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Flowing Springs's own scale — its own ~232-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,092 acres it covers and 217 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Flowing Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Flowing Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 15 and the ~232-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 217 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Flowing Springs, the closest Mining record about 0.9 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Flowing Springs's boundary and the 1,092 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~232-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Flowing Springs's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Flowing Springs 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 Flowing Springs's 1,092 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Gila County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Gila 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 Gila County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Flowing Springs's 1,092 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Flowing Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,092 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Mining record about 0.9 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 Flowing Springs-wide figureread your own land →
More in Arizona
Wider growing context
What grows across ArizonaFlowing Springs sits outside our named growing regions, so Arizona as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides