Cleburne County, in Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Cleburne County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Cleburne County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Cleburne County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Cleburne County — the short answer
Cleburne County, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 252 days between hard freezes, across 355K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~252
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 355K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Cleburne County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cleburne County's 252-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Cleburne County
Across a year, Cleburne County accumulates about 4,506 growing degree days above 50°F, about 300 fewer than the middle Arkansas county — ahead of 20 of Arkansas’s 75 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 1,877 hours below 45°F, 97 more than the Arkansas middle of 1,780. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Cleburne County
Across Cleburne County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Steprock, Mountainburg, and Enders are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a stony fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.6, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
11%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Cleburne County
The USDA soil survey maps 89% of Cleburne County as well drained — but another 5% drains differently: 5% moderately well drained.
Steprock is the most extensive named soil at 39% of mapped acres, then Mountainburg (16%) and Enders (15%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Cleburne County
Each reading below is measured for Cleburne County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Cleburne County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Cleburne County runs about pH 5.0–5.6, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredCleburne County runs about 252 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
MeasuredCleburne County 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 Cleburne County is in
Cleburne County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Arkansas Valley (53%) and Boston Mountains (47%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Cleburne County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Cleburne County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 252-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile.
Is it too late to plant in Cleburne County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 23 — 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.
What gets applied to farmland in Cleburne County
USGS estimates 19,606 lb of Triclopyr on Cleburne County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (12,696 lb) and Glyphosate (755 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Cleburne County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Cleburne County — 152 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 10 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Cleburne County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Cleburne County
Closest first, across Cleburne County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DEVILS FORK BAIT SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- CRAWFORD'S SPORTS SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- 11N10W23BCB01Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- TUMBLING SHOALS WATER ASSOCPFAS · 4.0 mi
- 25 AND 5 GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- DRASCO COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- LOGAN'S GENERAL STORE LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- DAM SITE MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- GLOBAL GEOPHYSICAL SERVICESBrownfields · 4.5 mi
- UNITED PLASTICS TECHNOLOGY,INCBrownfields · 4.7 mi
- SENTINEL INDUSTRIES INCToxics Release Inventory · 4.7 mi
- 10N10W12ABB1Nitrate · 4.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cleburne County'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 Cleburne County.
Total Sites
152
across Cleburne County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
10 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Cleburne County
Severity Distribution
across Cleburne County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cleburne County, two things run higher than the national average across Cleburne County — PFAS (4 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (108 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Cleburne County
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 Cleburne County average
Your land is one point inside Cleburne County
Everything above resolves to Cleburne County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 355K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Cleburne County Average
Cleburne County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Cleburne County
- ●One soil character for all of Cleburne County
- ●Frost dates read at Cleburne County's scale: Mar 16 to Nov 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cleburne County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Cleburne County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cleburne County, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cleburne County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cleburne County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cleburne County average
How we know this about Cleburne County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Cleburne County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Cleburne County
When does frost risk typically end in Cleburne County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cleburne County typically lands around Mar 16, 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 6.
How long is the growing season in Cleburne County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cleburne County sees about 252 frost-free days — roughly Mar 16 through Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 6 to Nov 9, about 217 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cleburne County?
The federal record around Cleburne County shows 152 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (108), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.8 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
Everything above is measured at Cleburne County's scale — its 8a band and its 252-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cleburne County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Arkansas's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Cleburne County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Cleburne County's own scale — its own ~252-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 152 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cleburne County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cleburne County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~252-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Cleburne CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 152 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Cleburne County's boundary and the 354,534 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~252-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Cleburne County spans, Arkansas Valley the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Cleburne County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Arkansas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Arkansas
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Cleburne County — the ~252 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cleburne County's 354,534 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 152 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Cleburne Countyread your own land →