El Dorado Hills, California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Reliable performers under these conditions include tomato, artichoke, fig, and california poppy; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in El Dorado Hills, 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 El Dorado Hills 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 El Dorado Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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El Dorado Hills — the short answer
El Dorado Hills, California: USDA zone 9b, about 256 days between hard freezes, across 31K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 18
- El Dorado County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 29
- El Dorado County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~256
- El Dorado County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 31K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are El Dorado County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9b is El Dorado Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against El Dorado Hills's 256-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in El Dorado Hills
Each reading below is measured for El Dorado Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsEl Dorado Hills runs about 256 days between hard freezes (read from El Dorado County, the closest normal to El Dorado Hills) — 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
MeasuredEl Dorado Hills sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b.
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 El Dorado Hills is in
El Dorado Hills sits in the Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Mediterranean California. That is read at El Dorado Hills's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: El Dorado County is mostly Sierra Nevada. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in El Dorado Hills
Plants matched to El Dorado Hills's USDA zones 9b, ordered by how much hardiness margin each has here — the ones with room to spare at both ends of this town's band lead. Each links to its full growing profile.
Is it too late to plant in El Dorado Hills?
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 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 18 (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. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What's on the federal record near El Dorado Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of El Dorado Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SERRANO COUNTRY CLUBBrownfields · 1600 ft
- WalkerMining · 0.9 mi
- MillerMining · 0.9 mi
- JoergerMining · 0.9 mi
- Safeway Fuel Center #748Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- SAFEWAY #748Brownfields · 1.0 mi
- EL DORADO ID - MAINPFAS · 1.1 mi
- EL DORADO COUNTYBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- ORHS TRACH ERSuperfund · 1.3 mi
- OAK RIDGE HIGH ASBESTOSSuperfund · 1.3 mi
- EL DORADO USD/OAK RIDGE HIGH SCHBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- Joerger MineMining · 1.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from El Dorado Hills'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 El Dorado Hills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of El Dorado Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of El Dorado Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around El Dorado Hills, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of El Dorado Hills — Mining (106 sites) and Brownfields (635 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in El Dorado Hills
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 El Dorado Hills average
Your land is one point inside El Dorado Hills
Everything above resolves to El Dorado Hills as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 31K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from El Dorado County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid. 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 El Dorado Hills Average
El Dorado Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across El Dorado Hills
- ●One soil character for all of El Dorado Hills
- ●Frost dates read at El Dorado Hills's scale: Mar 18 to Nov 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not El Dorado Hills's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in El Dorado Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in El Dorado Hills, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that El Dorado Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around El Dorado Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the El Dorado Hills average
How we know this about El Dorado Hills
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 El Dorado County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 El Dorado Hills
When does frost risk typically end in El Dorado Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in El Dorado Hills typically lands around Mar 18, 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 Apr 8.
When is the first frost in El Dorado Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in El Dorado Hills typically arrives around Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 15, so the watching starts about Oct 30 — about 256 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in El Dorado Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, El Dorado Hills sees about 256 frost-free days — roughly Mar 18 through Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 8 to Nov 15, about 221 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in El Dorado Hills?
The federal record around El Dorado Hills runs heavier than most — 841 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (635), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in El Dorado Hills?
From about Oct 30 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 29 (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 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at El Dorado Hills's scale — its 9b band and its 256-day season. Your yard writes its own version of El Dorado Hills'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 El Dorado Hills’s own scale
4 of the readings below were taken at El Dorado Hills's own scale — the 31,016 acres it covers and 841 documented sites around it; 6 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- El Dorado Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 841 documented contamination sites on the federal record near El Dorado Hills, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- El Dorado Hills's boundary and the 31,016 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- El Dorado Hills sits in the Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — El Dorado Hills has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom El Dorado County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so El Dorado Hills's 31,016 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom El Dorado County
- The candidate plant list — California's curated set, filtered to this zone band and re-ordered by how much margin each has herefrom California
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom El Dorado County
- The growing challenges every California grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom California
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom El Dorado County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among El Dorado Hills's 31,016 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of El Dorado Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 31,016 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 El Dorado Hills-wide figureread your own land →