Jones Mills, 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 Jones Mills, 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 Jones Mills 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 Jones Mills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Jones Mills — the short answer
Jones Mills, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 263 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~263
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Jones Mills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Jones Mills's 263-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Jones Mills
Each reading below is measured for Jones Mills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredJones Mills runs about 263 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
MeasuredJones Mills 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 Jones Mills is in
Jones Mills sits in the Ouachita Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Jones Mills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hot Spring County.
What Grows in Jones Mills
Every plant below cleared Jones Mills's own zone 8a and its 263-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Jones Mills?
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 Feb 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 22 — 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 Jones Mills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Jones Mills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HARDAGE, J. R.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- REYNOLDS CONSUMER PRODUCTS LLCToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- REYNOLDS CONSUMER PRODUCTS LLCBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- ENTERGY ARKANSAS, INC. - REMMEL DAMBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- ECONO GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ARCH STREET SHELL INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- ENTERGY-LAKE CATHERINE PLANTBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- GENERAL CABLE MALVERN PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- REYNOLDS CONSUMER PRODUCTS LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- JONES MILL LOCOMOTIVE FACILITYBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- LAKE CATHERINE STATE PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- GENERAL CABLE INDUSTRIES, INC.Brownfields · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Jones Mills'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 Jones Mills.
Total Sites
378
within ~10 miles of Jones Mills
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Jones Mills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Jones Mills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Jones Mills, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 5 sites within ~10 miles of Jones Mills. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Jones Mills
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 Jones Mills average
Your land is one point inside Jones Mills
Everything above resolves to Jones Mills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Jones Mills Average
Jones Mills Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Jones Mills
- ●One soil character for all of Jones Mills
- ●Frost dates read at Jones Mills's scale: Mar 4 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Jones Mills's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Jones Mills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Jones Mills, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Jones Mills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Jones Mills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Jones Mills average
How we know this about Jones Mills
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 Jones Mills’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 Jones Mills
When does frost risk typically end in Jones Mills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Jones Mills typically lands around Mar 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Jones Mills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Jones Mills typically arrives around Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 8, so the watching starts about Oct 23 — about 263 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Jones Mills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Jones Mills sees about 263 frost-free days — roughly Mar 4 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 25 to Nov 8, about 228 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Jones Mills?
The federal record around Jones Mills is a meaningful one — 378 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (231), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Jones Mills?
From about Oct 23 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 22 (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 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Jones Mills's scale — its 8a band and its 263-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Jones Mills'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 Jones Mills’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Jones Mills's own scale — its own ~263-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,045 acres it covers and 378 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Jones Mills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Jones Mills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 4 and Nov 22 and the ~263-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 378 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Jones Mills, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Jones Mills's boundary and the 2,045 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~263-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Jones Mills's own centroid, the Ouachita MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Jones Mills's 2,045 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 Jones Mills's 2,045 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Jones Mills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,045 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Jones Mills-wide figureread your own land →
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