Cleveland County, in Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Cleveland County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Cleveland 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 Cleveland County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Cleveland County — the short answer
Cleveland County, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 256 days between hard freezes, across 383K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~256
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 383K 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 Cleveland County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cleveland County's 256-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Cleveland County
Across a year, Cleveland County accumulates about 5,159 growing degree days above 50°F, about 353 more than the middle Arkansas county — ahead of 56 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 1,545 hours below 45°F, 235 fewer 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 Cleveland County
Across Cleveland County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Wehadkee, Caddo, and Savannah are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3–5.5, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
20%
Hydric soils
38%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Cleveland County
The USDA soil survey maps 39% of Cleveland County as poorly drained — but another 60% drains differently: 32% moderately well drained, 16% somewhat poorly drained.
Wehadkee is the most extensive named soil at 18% of mapped acres, then Caddo (13%) and Savannah (10%).
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 Cleveland County
Each reading below is measured for Cleveland 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 Cleveland County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group C/D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Cleveland County runs about pH 5.3–5.5, 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
MeasuredCleveland County runs about 256 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
MeasuredCleveland 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 Cleveland County is in
Cleveland County sits in the South Central Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Cleveland County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Cleveland County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 256-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 Cleveland County?
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 Feb 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
What gets applied to farmland in Cleveland County
USGS estimates 1,836 lb of 2,4-d on Cleveland County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (302 lb) and Triclopyr (295 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 Cleveland County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Cleveland County — 71 documented sites across 4 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Cleveland 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 Cleveland County
Closest first, across Cleveland County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RISON STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- DONALDSON'S HANDYMARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- 09S10W17ACC1Nitrate · 3.1 mi
- TYSON FOODS-RISON HATCHERYBrownfields · 3.4 mi
- TYSON FOODS, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- CLEVELAND COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRIUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- CLEVELAND COUNTY PESTICIDE COLLECTION (STERICYCLE)Brownfields · 4.1 mi
- AHTD-RISON AREA HEADQUARTERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- QUIK 'M CONVENIENCE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- CLEVELAND COUNTY TELEPHONE COUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- RISON ONE STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- CLEVELAND COUNTY OIL CO #2Underground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cleveland 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 Cleveland County.
Total Sites
71
across Cleveland County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Cleveland County
Severity Distribution
across Cleveland County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cleveland County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 26 sites across Cleveland County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Cleveland 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 Cleveland County average
Your land is one point inside Cleveland County
Everything above resolves to Cleveland County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 383K 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 Cleveland County Average
Cleveland County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Cleveland County
- ●One soil character for all of Cleveland County
- ●Frost dates read at Cleveland County's scale: Mar 8 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cleveland County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Cleveland County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cleveland County, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cleveland County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cleveland County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cleveland County average
How we know this about Cleveland 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 Cleveland County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Cleveland County
When does frost risk typically end in Cleveland County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cleveland County typically lands around Mar 8, 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 29.
How long is the growing season in Cleveland County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cleveland County sees about 256 frost-free days — roughly Mar 8 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 29 to Nov 5, about 221 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cleveland County?
The federal record around Cleveland County shows 71 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (40), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 3.0 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 Cleveland County's scale — its 8a band and its 256-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cleveland 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 Cleveland County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Cleveland County's own scale — its own ~256-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 71 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cleveland County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cleveland County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~256-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Cleveland CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 71 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 3.0 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Cleveland County's boundary and the 382,662 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~256-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Cleveland County sitting wholly inside the South Central PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Cleveland 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 Cleveland County — the ~256 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 Cleveland County's 382,662 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 71 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 Cleveland Countyread your own land →