Miami, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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 Miami, 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 Miami 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 Miami — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Miami — the short answer
Miami, Arizona: USDA zone 9a, about 283 days between hard freezes, across 570 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~283
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 570 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 9a is Miami's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Miami's 283-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Miami
Each reading below is measured for Miami itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMiami runs about 283 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
MeasuredMiami 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 Miami is in
Miami sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Miami's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gila County.
What Grows in Miami
Every plant below cleared Miami's own zone 9a and its 283-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Miami?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
Documented around Miami
Survey cells within 31 miles of Miami checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 364 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Miami
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Miami. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SERVICE STATION - FORMERUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- DAVE'S FAST STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- GILA COUNTY APN #206-20-001BUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- WHITEFIELD TANK LINEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Van DykeMining · 1600 ft
- GIBSON MINESuperfund · 1900 ft
- RANCHERS EXPLOR DEV CORP BLUEBIRD MINESuperfund · 1900 ft
- CURRYS PLACE -FORMERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- ARIZONA WATER COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- PARCEL #206-19-011Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- TRACTOR SUPPLY #1726Brownfields · 2000 ft
- MIAMI COMMERCIALUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Miami'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 Miami.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Miami
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Miami
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Miami, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Miami — Mining (188 sites) and Superfund (9 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Miami
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 Miami average
Your land is one point inside Miami
Everything above resolves to Miami as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 570 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 Miami Average
Miami Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Miami
- ●One soil character for all of Miami
- ●Frost dates read at Miami's scale: Feb 18 to Nov 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Miami's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Miami
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Miami, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Miami averages can't show:
We read public map data around Miami — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Miami average
How we know this about Miami
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 Miami’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 Miami
When does frost risk typically end in Miami?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Miami typically lands around Feb 18, 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 11.
When is the first frost in Miami?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Miami typically arrives around Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 14, so the watching starts about Oct 29 — about 283 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Miami?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Miami sees about 283 frost-free days — roughly Feb 18 through Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 11 to Nov 14, about 248 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Miami?
The federal record around Miami runs heavier than most — 312 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (188), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Miami?
From about Oct 29 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 28 (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 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Miami's scale — its 9a band and its 283-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Miami'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 Miami’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Miami's own scale — its own ~283-day season between 28°F freezes, the 570 acres it covers and 312 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Miami's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Miami's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 18 and Nov 28 and the ~283-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 312 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Miami, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Miami's boundary and the 570 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~283-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Miami's own centroid, the Arizona/New Mexico MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Miami 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 Miami's 570 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 Miami's 570 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Miami you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 570 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Miami-wide figureread your own land →
More in Arizona
Wider growing context
What grows across ArizonaMiami sits outside our named growing regions, so Arizona as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides