Faulkner County, in Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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
Faulkner County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Faulkner 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 Faulkner County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Faulkner County — the short answer
Faulkner County, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 249 days between hard freezes, across 414K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~249
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 414K 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 Faulkner County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Faulkner County's 249-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Faulkner County
Across a year, Faulkner County accumulates about 4,766 growing degree days above 50°F, about 40 fewer than the middle Arkansas county — ahead of 33 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 1,803 hours below 45°F, 23 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 Faulkner County
Across Faulkner County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Linker, Mountainburg, and Leadvale are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.6, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
56%
Hydric soils
5%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Faulkner County
The USDA soil survey maps 57% of Faulkner County as well drained — but another 40% drains differently: 21% moderately well drained, 12% somewhat poorly drained.
Linker is the most extensive named soil at 25% of mapped acres, then Mountainburg (24%) and Leadvale (21%).
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 Faulkner County
Each reading below is measured for Faulkner 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 Faulkner County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — 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 Faulkner 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
MeasuredFaulkner County runs about 249 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
MeasuredFaulkner 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 Faulkner County is in
Faulkner County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Arkansas Valley (85%) and Ouachita Mountains (16%). 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 Faulkner County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Faulkner County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 249-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 Faulkner County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — 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.
Documented around Faulkner County
- monarch butterfly210 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Faulkner County
USGS estimates 68,531 lb of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s on Faulkner County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor-s (66,813 lb) and Glyphosate (12,287 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 Faulkner County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Faulkner County — 327 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Faulkner County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Faulkner County
Closest first, across Faulkner County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FAULKNER CO. ROAD DEPARTMENTBrownfields · 3.1 mi
- CONWAY STATIONBrownfields · 3.5 mi
- WALMART SUPERCENTER #5Brownfields · 3.6 mi
- CENTRAL ARKANSAS MOBILE SERVICEBrownfields · 3.9 mi
- THOMAS PETROLEUM, LLC.Toxics Release Inventory · 4.0 mi
- CIRCLE K #2741776Underground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- ALTEC INDUSTRIES INCBrownfields · 4.1 mi
- DOUBLEBEES #111Underground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- WASTEWATER SPECIALTIES LLCBrownfields · 4.2 mi
- CONOCO SWIFT STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- MIRAJ 3 INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
- DICKSON COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Faulkner 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 Faulkner County.
Total Sites
327
across Faulkner County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Faulkner County
Severity Distribution
across Faulkner County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Faulkner County, two things run higher than the national average across Faulkner County — PFAS (4 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (28 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Faulkner 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 Faulkner County average
Your land is one point inside Faulkner County
Everything above resolves to Faulkner County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 414K 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 Faulkner County Average
Faulkner County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Faulkner County
- ●One soil character for all of Faulkner County
- ●Frost dates read at Faulkner County's scale: Mar 12 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Faulkner County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Faulkner County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Faulkner County, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Faulkner County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Faulkner County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Faulkner County average
How we know this about Faulkner 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 Faulkner County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Faulkner County
When does frost risk typically end in Faulkner County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Faulkner County typically lands around Mar 12, 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 2.
How long is the growing season in Faulkner County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Faulkner County sees about 249 frost-free days — roughly Mar 12 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 2 to Nov 2, about 214 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Faulkner County?
The federal record around Faulkner County is a meaningful one — 327 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (176), the nearest Brownfields record about 3.1 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.
Everything above is measured at Faulkner County's scale — its 8a band and its 249-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Faulkner 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 Faulkner County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Faulkner County's own scale — its own ~249-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 327 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Faulkner County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Faulkner County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~249-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Faulkner CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 327 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 3.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Faulkner County's boundary and the 414,238 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~249-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Faulkner County spans, Arkansas Valley the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Faulkner County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Faulkner 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 Faulkner County — the ~249 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 Faulkner County's 414,238 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 327 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 Faulkner Countyread your own land →