Hot Springs Village, 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.
Even in Hot Springs Village, 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 Hot Springs Village 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 Hot Springs Village — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Hot Springs Village — the short answer
Hot Springs Village, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 259 days between hard freezes, across 37K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~259
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 37K 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 Hot Springs Village's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hot Springs Village's 259-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hot Springs Village
Each reading below is measured for Hot Springs Village itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHot Springs Village runs about 259 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
MeasuredHot Springs Village 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 Springs Village is in
Hot Springs Village sits in the Ouachita Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Hot Springs Village's own centroid rather than borrowed from Saline County.
What Grows in Hot Springs Village
Every plant below cleared Hot Springs Village's own zone 8a and its 259-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hot Springs Village?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 7 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Hot Springs Village
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hot Springs Village. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FUEL STOP #685Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- CORTEZ LIFT STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- CBM BUILDING MATERIALSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- WEYERHAEUSER COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- BALBOA GOLF MAINTENANCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- AMERICAN ONCOLOGY PARTNERSBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- SCRSWMD @ WOODLANDS AUDITORIUMBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE POAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- GOOD SAMARITAN HOSPITALUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- VILLAGE EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- VILLAGE SHELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- 02S20W33CDC1Nitrate · 4.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hot Springs Village'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 Springs Village.
Total Sites
68
within ~10 miles of Hot Springs Village
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hot Springs Village
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hot Springs Village
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hot Springs Village, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 18 sites within ~10 miles of Hot Springs Village. 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 Hot Springs Village
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 Springs Village average
Your land is one point inside Hot Springs Village
Everything above resolves to Hot Springs Village as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 37K 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 Hot Springs Village Average
Hot Springs Village Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Hot Springs Village
- ●One soil character for all of Hot Springs Village
- ●Frost dates read at Hot Springs Village's scale: Mar 7 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hot Springs Village's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hot Springs Village
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hot Springs Village averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hot Springs Village — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hot Springs Village average
How we know this about Hot Springs Village
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 Hot Springs Village’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 Hot Springs Village
When does frost risk typically end in Hot Springs Village?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hot Springs Village typically lands around Mar 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Hot Springs Village?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hot Springs Village typically arrives around Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 7, so the watching starts about Oct 22 — about 259 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hot Springs Village?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hot Springs Village sees about 259 frost-free days — roughly Mar 7 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 28 to Nov 7, about 224 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hot Springs Village?
The federal record around Hot Springs Village shows 68 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (40), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.0 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Hot Springs Village?
From about Oct 22 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 21 (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 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hot Springs Village's scale — its 8a band and its 259-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hot Springs Village'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 Hot Springs Village’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Hot Springs Village's own scale — its own ~259-day season between 28°F freezes, the 36,888 acres it covers and 68 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hot Springs Village's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hot Springs Village's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 7 and Nov 21 and the ~259-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 68 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hot Springs Village, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.0 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hot Springs Village's boundary and the 36,888 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~259-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Hot Springs Village's own centroid, the Ouachita MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Hot Springs Village's 36,888 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Saline County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Saline 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 Saline County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hot Springs Village's 36,888 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hot Springs Village you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 36,888 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.0 miles 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 Hot Springs Village-wide figureread your own land →
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