Friendship, 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.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Friendship, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Friendship lot. 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 Friendship — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Friendship — the short answer
Friendship, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 261 days between hard freezes, across 456 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~261
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 456 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 Friendship's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Friendship's 261-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Friendship
Each reading below is measured for Friendship itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFriendship 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
MeasuredFriendship 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 Friendship is in
Friendship sits in the South Central Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Friendship's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Hot Spring County is mostly Ouachita Mountains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Friendship
Every plant below cleared Friendship's own zone 8a and its 261-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Friendship?
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 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 3 (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. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
What's on the federal record near Friendship
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Friendship. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ALUMA-WELDToxics Release Inventory · 350 ft
- DEROCHE QUARRYUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- KADI'S KORNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- TWIN RIVER TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- LEA'S ONE STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- 06S19W11DBA1Nitrate · 1900 ft
- BUZZ BY #3Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- 06S19W11ABC1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- 06S19W10DAB1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- FRIENDSHIP STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- AHTD-BRDG 03898 A & BBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- AHTD BRDG 03940 A&BBrownfields · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Friendship'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 Friendship.
Total Sites
188
within ~10 miles of Friendship
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Friendship
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Friendship
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Friendship, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 68 sites within ~10 miles of Friendship. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 Friendship
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 Friendship average
Your land is one point inside Friendship
Everything above resolves to Friendship as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 456 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 town 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Friendship Average
Friendship Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Friendship
- ●One soil character for all of Friendship
- ●Frost dates read at Friendship's scale: Mar 3 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Friendship's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Friendship
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Friendship, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Friendship averages can't show:
We read public map data around Friendship — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Friendship average
How we know this about Friendship
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Friendship’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Friendship
When does frost risk typically end in Friendship?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Friendship typically lands around Mar 3, 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 24.
When is the first frost in Friendship?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Friendship typically arrives around Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 5, so the watching starts about Oct 20 — about 261 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Friendship?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Friendship sees about 261 frost-free days — roughly Mar 3 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 24 to Nov 5, about 226 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Friendship?
The federal record around Friendship is a meaningful one — 188 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (93), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory record under a tenth of a mile 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Friendship?
From about Oct 20 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Friendship's scale — its 8a band and its 261-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Friendship's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Friendship’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Friendship's own scale — its own ~261-day season between 28°F freezes, the 456 acres it covers and 188 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Friendship's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Friendship's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 3 and Nov 19 and the ~261-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 188 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Friendship, the closest Toxics Release Inventory record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Friendship's boundary and the 456 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~261-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Friendship sits in the South Central Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Friendship's 456 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hot Spring County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hot Spring County
- The growing challenges every Arkansas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Arkansas
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Hot Spring County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Friendship's 456 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Friendship you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 456 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record under a tenth of a mile out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Friendship-wide figureread your own land →
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