Menlo Park, California, sits in USDA hardiness zone 10a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: artichoke, meyer lemon, california poppy, and cabbage. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Menlo Park, 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 Menlo Park 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 Menlo Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Menlo Park — the short answer
Menlo Park, California: USDA zone 10a, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 6K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 10a
- 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 10a is Menlo Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Menlo Park'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 Menlo Park
Each reading below is measured for Menlo Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredMenlo Park sits in USDA hardiness zone 10a.
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 Menlo Park is in
Menlo Park sits in the Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Mediterranean California. That is read at Menlo Park's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: San Mateo County is mostly Coast Range. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Menlo Park
Every plant below cleared Menlo Park's own zone 10a. Each card opens that plant's California profile. How we score.
Documented around Menlo Park
Spotted lanternfly documented 19 miles from Menlo Park, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Menlo Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Menlo Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CETERIX ORTHOPAEDICSBrownfields · 300 ft
- RAYCHEM CORPBrownfields · 350 ft
- RAYCHEM CORPToxics Release Inventory · 350 ft
- PACIFIC BIOSCIENCES OF CALIFORNIABrownfields · 350 ft
- PACIFIC BIOSCIENCES OF CALIFORNIA INCBrownfields · 450 ft
- CONOR MEDSYSTEMS, C/O CORDIS WBrownfields · 450 ft
- LINCOLN WILLOW BUSINESS PARKBrownfields · 450 ft
- MEMBRANE TECHNOLOGY & RESEARCHBrownfields · 450 ft
- CHEMETALToxics Release Inventory · 450 ft
- CHEMETALBrownfields · 450 ft
- RENNOVIA INCBrownfields · 450 ft
- FACEBOOKBrownfields · 500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Menlo Park'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 Menlo Park.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Menlo Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Menlo Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Menlo Park, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 5,255 sites within ~10 miles of Menlo Park. 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 Menlo Park
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 Menlo Park average
Your land is one point inside Menlo Park
Everything above resolves to Menlo Park 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 Menlo Park Average
Menlo Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 10a, averaged across Menlo Park
- ●One soil character for all of Menlo Park
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Menlo Park's 10a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Menlo Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Menlo Park, California — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Menlo Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Menlo Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Menlo Park average
How we know this about Menlo Park
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 Menlo Park
Is it too late to plant in Menlo Park?
No — Menlo Park 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 Menlo Park?
It doesn't — Menlo Park 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 Menlo Park?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Menlo Park 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 Menlo Park?
The federal record around Menlo Park runs heavier than most — 5,862 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (5,255), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Menlo Park's scale — its 10a band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Menlo Park'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 Menlo Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Menlo Park's own scale — the 6,394 acres it covers and 5,862 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Menlo Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10aUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering Menlo Park — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 5,862 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Menlo Park, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Menlo Park's boundary and the 6,394 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear Menlo Park's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Menlo Park sits in the Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Menlo Parklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Menlo Park's 6,394 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom San Mateo County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom San Mateo 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 San Mateo County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Menlo Park's 6,394 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Menlo Park you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,394 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Menlo Park-wide figureread your own land →