Parks, Arizona, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
On paper, cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Parks, 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 Parks 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 Parks — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Parks — the short answer
Parks, Arizona: USDA zone 6a, about 135 days between hard freezes, across 109K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~135
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 109K 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 6a is Parks's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Parks's 135-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Parks
Each reading below is measured for Parks itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredParks runs about 135 days between hard freezes — a short growing season.
Long-maturing crops like melons, sweet potatoes, and winter squash can run out of runway before the first hard freeze, ripening late or not at all.
Lead with fast-maturing varieties, and stretch the season on both ends with cold frames, low tunnels, or a greenhouse.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredParks sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Parks is in
Parks sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Temperate Sierras. That is read at Parks's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Coconino County is mostly Arizona/New Mexico Plateau. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Parks
Every plant below cleared Parks's own zone 6a and its 135-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arizona profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Parks?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. When the window is tight, the fall moves are quick ones — baby greens, radishes, and garlic set for next season.
Documented around Parks
Survey cells within 31 miles of Parks checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 332 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Parks
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Parks. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- A-22-04 27AADNitrate · 1.8 mi
- MAINE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL DISTRICT #10Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- PARKS IN THE PINES GENERAL STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- PARKS MERCANTILE & FEEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- CAMPGROUND - STORE - SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- SCA TISSUE - BELLEMONT CONVERTING FACILITYToxics Release Inventory · 2.7 mi
- A-22-05 19CCC2Nitrate · 3.3 mi
- A-22-03 26AAA2Nitrate · 4.2 mi
- A-21-04 05DBCNitrate · 4.2 mi
- A-22-03 25CBBNitrate · 4.3 mi
- A-22-04 26DBB1Nitrate · 4.4 mi
- A-22-03 26BAANitrate · 4.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Parks'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 Parks.
Total Sites
46
within ~10 miles of Parks
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Parks
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Parks
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Parks, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Parks — Nitrate (28 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (3 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Parks
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 Parks average
Your land is one point inside Parks
Everything above resolves to Parks as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 109K 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 Parks Average
Parks Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Parks
- ●One soil character for all of Parks
- ●Frost dates read at Parks's scale: May 21 to Oct 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Parks's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Parks
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Parks, Arizona — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Parks averages can't show:
We read public map data around Parks — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Parks average
How we know this about Parks
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 Parks’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 Parks
When does frost risk typically end in Parks?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Parks typically lands around May 21, 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 Jun 11.
When is the first frost in Parks?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Parks typically arrives around Oct 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 19, so the watching starts about Sep 3 — about 135 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Parks?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Parks sees about 135 frost-free days — roughly May 21 through Oct 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 11 to Sep 19, about 100 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Parks?
The federal record around Parks is a meaningful one — 46 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (28), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.8 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 gardeners stretch the season in Parks?
With about 135 frost-free days between hard freezes, Parks rewards the classic extension moves: floating row cover buys roughly two to four extra weeks at each shoulder — on this season that is a working window nearer 163 to 191 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the May 21 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Parks's scale — its 6a band and its 135-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Parks'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 Parks’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Parks's own scale — its own ~135-day season between 28°F freezes, the 108,733 acres it covers and 46 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Parks's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Parks's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about May 21 and Oct 3 and the ~135-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 46 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Parks, the closest Nitrate record about 1.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Parks's boundary and the 108,733 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~135-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Parks sits in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Parks 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 Parks's 108,733 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Coconino County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Coconino 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 Coconino County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Parks's 108,733 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Parks you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 108,733 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 1.8 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 Parks-wide figureread your own land →