El Monte, California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 10b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Well-matched crops include artichoke, meyer lemon, california poppy, and cabbage, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in El Monte, 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 Monte 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 Monte — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
El Monte — the short answer
El Monte, California: USDA zone 10b, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 6K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 10b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Killing freeze
- None on record
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991–2020, this town’s own record
- City area
- 6K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. The year-round finding is measured — a 30-year record with no 28°F killing freeze in it — never inferred from missing dates.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 10b is El Monte's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against El Monte's no killing freeze on record, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in El Monte
Each reading below is measured for El Monte itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredEl Monte sits in USDA hardiness zone 10b.
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 Monte is in
El Monte sits in the Southern California/Northern Baja Coast — EPA Level III, inside the wider Mediterranean California. That is read at El Monte's own centroid rather than borrowed from Los Angeles County.
What Grows in El Monte
Every plant below cleared El Monte's own zone 10b. Each card opens that plant's California profile. How we score.
What's on the federal record near El Monte
Closest first, within ~10 miles of El Monte. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CUSTOM UNIQUE BODY SHOPBrownfields · 550 ft
- EL MONTE HEAD REPAIRBrownfields · 800 ft
- DOLLAR TREE #10508Brownfields · 850 ft
- 99 CENTS ONLY STORESBrownfields · 850 ft
- AUTOZONE #2863Brownfields · 1000 ft
- SALLY BEAUTY SUPPLY #2257Brownfields · 1000 ft
- SMART & FINAL #373Brownfields · 1000 ft
- EL MONTE PLATING COMPANYSuperfund · 1100 ft
- EL MONTE PLATING COMPANYBrownfields · 1100 ft
- ONE HOUR DRIVE IN CLEANERSBrownfields · 1200 ft
- AMADOR SUBSTATIONBrownfields · 1300 ft
- JUDICIAL COUNCIL OF CALIFORNIABrownfields · 1300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from El Monte'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 Monte.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of El Monte
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of El Monte
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around El Monte, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 9,805 sites within ~10 miles of El Monte. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in El Monte
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 Monte average
Your land is one point inside El Monte
Everything above resolves to El Monte as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 6K 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 city 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 Monte Average
El Monte Average
- ●USDA Zones 10b, averaged across El Monte
- ●One soil character for all of El Monte
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not El Monte's 10b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in El Monte
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in El Monte, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that El Monte averages can't show:
We read public map data around El Monte — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the El Monte average
How we know this about El Monte
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals, with the labelled statewide window where none resolves; 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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Monte
Is it too late to plant in El Monte?
No — El Monte has no 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record, so the growing season is year-round and there is no last-frost date to wait for. Planting is paced by rainfall, heat and daylength instead of by frost: start heat-lovers any month, and time cool-season crops (lettuce, brassicas, peas) for the cooler, wetter half of the year or for higher ground. Succession sowing every few weeks works all year, so the limit is what you can keep watered and harvested, not the calendar.
When does frost risk typically end in El Monte?
It doesn't — El Monte records no 28°F killing freeze at all across the 1991–2020 station record, so there is no spring frost date to plant after. Cold still matters with elevation: the higher you garden, the cooler the nights, and a few tropical crops sulk below about 60°F even where they never freeze.
How long is the growing season in El Monte?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for El Monte contains no 28°F killing freeze, so there is no season to measure between freezes. What paces planting instead is heat, rainfall and daylength: the hottest, wettest stretch is the hard part for cool-season crops, not winter. Elevation is the one real exception — the higher you garden, the colder the nights get.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in El Monte?
The federal record around El Monte runs heavier than most — 11,188 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (9,805), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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.
Everything above is measured at El Monte's scale — its 10b band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of El Monte'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 Monte’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at El Monte's own scale — the 6,116 acres it covers and 11,188 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- El Monte's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10bUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering El Monte — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 11,188 documented contamination sites on the federal record near El Monte, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- El Monte's boundary and the 6,116 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear El Monte's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at El Monte's own centroid, the Southern California/Northern Baja CoastUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so El Monte's 6,116 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Los Angeles County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Los Angeles 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 Los Angeles County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among El Monte's 6,116 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of El Monte you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,116 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Monte-wide figureread your own land →