Flowing Wells, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Flowing Wells, 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 Wells 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 Wells — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Flowing Wells — the short answer
Flowing Wells, Arizona: USDA zone 9a, about 313 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 3
- Pima County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 13
- Pima County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~313
- Pima County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 2K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Pima County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Flowing Wells's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Flowing Wells's 313-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Flowing Wells
Each reading below is measured for Flowing Wells itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsFlowing Wells runs about 313 days between hard freezes (read from Pima County, the closest normal to Flowing Wells) — 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
MeasuredFlowing Wells sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Wells is in
Flowing Wells sits in the Sonoran Basin and Range — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Flowing Wells's own centroid rather than borrowed from Pima County.
What Grows in Flowing Wells
Every plant below cleared Flowing Wells's own zone 9a and its 313-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Flowing Wells?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 13 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around Flowing Wells
Survey cells within 31 miles of Flowing Wells checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 363 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Flowing Wells
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Flowing Wells. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SPEEDWAY STORE #2943Underground Storage Tanks · 150 ft
- CIRCLE K #2700592Underground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- UNITED ACCESS TUCSONBrownfields · 500 ft
- WHITING STATION #158Underground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- WALMART NEIGHBORHOOD MARKET #4473Brownfields · 800 ft
- 36092Nitrate · 1000 ft
- D-13-13 16DDANitrate · 1300 ft
- D-13-13 15CDDNitrate · 2100 ft
- 78085Nitrate · 2100 ft
- 78086Nitrate · 2100 ft
- SHAMROCK FOODS COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- 61601Nitrate · 2400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Flowing Wells'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 Wells.
Total Sites
2,125
within ~10 miles of Flowing Wells
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
10 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Flowing Wells
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Flowing Wells
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Flowing Wells, Mining runs higher than the national average — 234 sites within ~10 miles of Flowing Wells. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Flowing Wells
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 Wells average
Your land is one point inside Flowing Wells
Everything above resolves to Flowing Wells as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 2K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Pima County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid. 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 Wells Average
Flowing Wells Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Flowing Wells
- ●One soil character for all of Flowing Wells
- ●Frost dates read at Flowing Wells's scale: Feb 3 to Dec 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Flowing Wells's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Flowing Wells
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Flowing Wells, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Flowing Wells averages can't show:
We read public map data around Flowing Wells — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Flowing Wells average
How we know this about Flowing Wells
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 Pima County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 Wells
When does frost risk typically end in Flowing Wells?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Flowing Wells typically lands around Feb 3, 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 Feb 24.
When is the first frost in Flowing Wells?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Flowing Wells typically arrives around Dec 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 29, so the watching starts about Nov 13 — about 313 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Flowing Wells?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Flowing Wells sees about 313 frost-free days — roughly Feb 3 through Dec 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 24 to Nov 29, about 278 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Flowing Wells?
The federal record around Flowing Wells runs heavier than most — 2,125 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (997), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Flowing Wells?
From about Nov 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 Dec 13 (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 13. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Flowing Wells's scale — its 9a band and its 313-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Flowing Wells'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 Wells’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Flowing Wells's own scale — the 2,438 acres it covers and 2,125 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Flowing Wells's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 2,125 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Flowing Wells, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Flowing Wells's boundary and the 2,438 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~313-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Flowing Wells's own centroid, the Sonoran Basin and RangeUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Flowing Wells checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Flowing Wells has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Pima County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Flowing Wells's 2,438 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Pima County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Pima 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 Pima County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Flowing Wells's 2,438 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Flowing Wells you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,438 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Wells-wide figureread your own land →