Phillips County, in Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
On paper, cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Phillips County lies within the Mississippi Delta — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Phillips County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Phillips 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 Phillips County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Phillips County — the short answer
Phillips County, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 279 days between hard freezes, across 442K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~279
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 442K 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 Phillips County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Phillips County's 279-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Phillips County
Across a year, Phillips County accumulates about 5,172 growing degree days above 50°F, about 366 more than the middle Arkansas county — ahead of 58 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 1,537 hours below 45°F, 243 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 Phillips County
Across Phillips County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Sharkey, Foley, and Henry are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.5–6.8, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
31%
Hydric soils
52%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Phillips County
The USDA soil survey maps 52% of Phillips County as poorly drained — but another 43% drains differently: 24% somewhat poorly drained, 9% well drained.
Sharkey is the most extensive named soil at 24% of mapped acres, then Foley (9%) and Henry (8%).
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 Phillips County
Each reading below is measured for Phillips 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 Phillips County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group 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 Phillips County runs about pH 5.5–6.8, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredPhillips County runs about 279 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
MeasuredPhillips 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 Phillips County is in
Phillips County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Mississippi Alluvial Plain (94%) and Mississippi Valley Loess Plains (6%). 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 Phillips County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Phillips County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 279-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 Phillips 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 Jan 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 29 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around Phillips County
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Phillips County
USGS estimates 304,856 lb of Glyphosate on Phillips County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (270,967 lb) and Metolachlor-s (153,442 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 Phillips County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Phillips County — 237 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site. 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 Phillips 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 Phillips County
Closest first, across Phillips County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HOWE PLANTATION INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- TOWN GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- FRANK LUM ONEIDA GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- MITCHELL GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.2 mi
- CIRCLE N #500Underground Storage Tanks · 6.0 mi
- 02S03E27BAD1Nitrate · 6.5 mi
- WILLIAM GUTHRIE GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.8 mi
- 02S03E22ACA1Nitrate · 7.4 mi
- ELAINE PETROLEUM DIST INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.7 mi
- HELENA AGRI-ENTERPRISES, LLC D/B/A HELENA CHEMICAL COMPANYBrownfields · 7.7 mi
- BARNES, JERRYUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.9 mi
- 04S02E25CDA2Nitrate · 7.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Phillips 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 Phillips County.
Sources Checked
across Phillips County
Severity Distribution
across Phillips County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Phillips County, two things run higher than the national average across Phillips County — PFAS (4 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (17 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.
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 Phillips 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 Phillips County average
Your land is one point inside Phillips County
Everything above resolves to Phillips County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 442K 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 Phillips County Average
Phillips County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Phillips County
- ●One soil character for all of Phillips County
- ●Frost dates read at Phillips County's scale: Feb 23 to Nov 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Phillips County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Phillips County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Phillips County, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Phillips County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Phillips County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Phillips County average
How we know this about Phillips 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 Phillips County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Phillips County
When does frost risk typically end in Phillips County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Phillips County typically lands around Feb 23, 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 16.
How long is the growing season in Phillips County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Phillips County sees about 279 frost-free days — roughly Feb 23 through Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 16 to Nov 15, about 244 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Phillips County?
The federal record around Phillips County is a meaningful one — 237 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (164), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.9 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 Phillips County's scale — its 8a band and its 279-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Phillips 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 Phillips County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Phillips County's own scale — its own ~279-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 237 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Phillips County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Phillips County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~279-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Phillips CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 237 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Phillips County's boundary and the 441,830 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~279-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Phillips County spans, Mississippi Alluvial Plain the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Phillips County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Phillips 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 Phillips County — the ~279 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 Phillips County's 441,830 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 237 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 Phillips Countyread your own land →