Lake Los Angeles, California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Lake Los Angeles, 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 Lake Los Angeles 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 Lake Los Angeles — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lake Los Angeles — the short answer
Lake Los Angeles, California: USDA zone 8b, about 253 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~253
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 6K 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 8b is Lake Los Angeles's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lake Los Angeles's 253-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lake Los Angeles
Each reading below is measured for Lake Los Angeles itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLake Los Angeles runs about 253 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
MeasuredLake Los Angeles sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Lake Los Angeles is in
Lake Los Angeles sits in the Mojave Basin and Range — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Lake Los Angeles's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Los Angeles County is mostly Southern California/Northern Baja Coast. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Lake Los Angeles
Every plant below cleared Lake Los Angeles's own zone 8b and its 253-day season. Each card opens that plant's California profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lake Los Angeles?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 18 — 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 Lake Los Angeles
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lake Los Angeles. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Lake LA DairyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- ANACLETO GONZALEZ RUIZ GONZALEZ BRAMS TRUCKINGBrownfields · 2200 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR #30626Brownfields · 2400 ft
- DOLLAR GENERAL #14002Brownfields · 2400 ft
- PACIFIC BELL TELEPHONE COMPANYBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- SADDLE BACK MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- JANICE FLEMINGBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- SALMEX TRANSPORT INCBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- AVM TRUCKING CORPBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- LACDPW WWD SITE 15 (WELL 38-3)Brownfields · 1.1 mi
- 006N009W10Q003SNitrate · 1.2 mi
- LOS ANGELES CWWD 40, REG. 38-LAKE LAPFAS · 1.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lake Los Angeles'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 Lake Los Angeles.
Total Sites
180
within ~10 miles of Lake Los Angeles
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lake Los Angeles
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lake Los Angeles
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lake Los Angeles, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 104 sites within ~10 miles of Lake Los Angeles. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Lake Los Angeles
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 Lake Los Angeles average
Your land is one point inside Lake Los Angeles
Everything above resolves to Lake Los Angeles 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 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 Lake Los Angeles Average
Lake Los Angeles Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Lake Los Angeles
- ●One soil character for all of Lake Los Angeles
- ●Frost dates read at Lake Los Angeles's scale: Mar 10 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lake Los Angeles's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lake Los Angeles
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lake Los Angeles, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lake Los Angeles averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lake Los Angeles — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lake Los Angeles average
How we know this about Lake Los Angeles
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 Lake Los Angeles’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 Lake Los Angeles
When does frost risk typically end in Lake Los Angeles?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Los Angeles typically lands around Mar 10, 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 31.
When is the first frost in Lake Los Angeles?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Los Angeles typically arrives around Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 4, so the watching starts about Oct 19 — about 253 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lake Los Angeles?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lake Los Angeles sees about 253 frost-free days — roughly Mar 10 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 31 to Nov 4, about 218 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lake Los Angeles?
The federal record around Lake Los Angeles is a meaningful one — 180 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (104), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Lake Los Angeles?
From about Oct 19 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 18 (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 18. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lake Los Angeles's scale — its 8b band and its 253-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lake Los Angeles'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 Lake Los Angeles’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Lake Los Angeles's own scale — its own ~253-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,234 acres it covers and 180 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lake Los Angeles's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lake Los Angeles's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 10 and Nov 18 and the ~253-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 180 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lake Los Angeles, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lake Los Angeles's boundary and the 6,234 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~253-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Lake Los Angeles sits in the Mojave Basin and Range — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lake Los Angeles's 6,234 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 Lake Los Angeles's 6,234 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lake Los Angeles you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,234 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Lake Los Angeles-wide figureread your own land →