Hot Spring County, in Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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.
Hot Spring County lies within the Ouachita Mountains — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Hot Spring County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Hot Spring 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 Hot Spring County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Hot Spring County — the short answer
Hot Spring County, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 261 days between hard freezes, across 394K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~261
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 394K 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 Hot Spring County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hot Spring County's 261-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Hot Spring County
Across a year, Hot Spring County accumulates about 4,986 growing degree days above 50°F, about 180 more than the middle Arkansas county — ahead of 47 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 1,608 hours below 45°F, 172 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 Hot Spring County
Across Hot Spring County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Sacul, Saffell, and Carnasaw are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a 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
25%
Hydric soils
5%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Hot Spring County
The USDA soil survey maps 63% of Hot Spring County as well drained — but another 36% drains differently: 15% moderately well drained, 14% somewhat poorly drained.
Sacul is the most extensive named soil at 10% of mapped acres, then Saffell (9%) and Carnasaw (9%).
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 Hot Spring County
Each reading below is measured for Hot Spring 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 Hot Spring 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 Hot Spring 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
MeasuredHot Spring County runs about 261 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
MeasuredHot Spring 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 Hot Spring County is in
Hot Spring County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Ouachita Mountains (52%) and South Central Plains (48%). 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 Hot Spring County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Hot Spring County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 261-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 Hot Spring County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 21 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
What gets applied to farmland in Hot Spring County
USGS estimates 2,411 lb of 2,4-d on Hot Spring County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (1,257 lb) and Triclopyr (500 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 Hot Spring County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Hot Spring County — 296 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 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 Hot Spring 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 Hot Spring County
Closest first, across Hot Spring County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 04S18W33DDC1Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- 05S18W03ADA1Nitrate · 1.7 mi
- 05S18W03AAA1Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- I-30 SOCIAL HILLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- OAK GROVE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- ACME BRICK CO-OUACHITAToxics Release Inventory · 4.1 mi
- HALLIBURTON ENERGY SERVICES, INC. - MAGNET COVEToxics Release Inventory · 4.5 mi
- ENTERGY ARKANSAS, LLC - HOT SPRING ENERGY FACILITYBrownfields · 4.6 mi
- 05S17W18DDC1Nitrate · 4.8 mi
- ACME BRICK CO.-OUACHITA PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.1 mi
- 06S18W05BAD1Nitrate · 5.3 mi
- 06S18W05BAD2Nitrate · 5.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hot Spring 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 Hot Spring County.
Total Sites
296
across Hot Spring County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Hot Spring County
Severity Distribution
across Hot Spring County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hot Spring County, two things run higher than the national average across Hot Spring County — Nitrate (106 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Hot Spring 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 Hot Spring County average
Your land is one point inside Hot Spring County
Everything above resolves to Hot Spring County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 394K 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 Hot Spring County Average
Hot Spring County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Hot Spring County
- ●One soil character for all of Hot Spring County
- ●Frost dates read at Hot Spring County's scale: Mar 5 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hot Spring County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Hot Spring County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hot Spring County, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hot Spring County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hot Spring County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hot Spring County average
How we know this about Hot Spring 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 Hot Spring County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Hot Spring County
When does frost risk typically end in Hot Spring County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hot Spring County typically lands around Mar 5, 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 26.
How long is the growing season in Hot Spring County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hot Spring County sees about 261 frost-free days — roughly Mar 5 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 26 to Nov 7, about 226 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hot Spring County?
The federal record around Hot Spring County is a meaningful one — 296 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (134), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.2 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 Hot Spring County's scale — its 8a band and its 261-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hot Spring 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 Hot Spring County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Hot Spring County's own scale — its own ~261-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 296 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hot Spring County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hot Spring County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~261-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Hot Spring CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 296 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 1.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Hot Spring County's boundary and the 393,564 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~261-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Hot Spring County spans, Ouachita Mountains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Hot Spring 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 Hot Spring County — the ~261 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 Hot Spring County's 393,564 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 296 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 Hot Spring Countyread your own land →