Echo Hills, Colorado, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
The conditions favor cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Echo 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 Echo 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 Echo Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Echo Hills — the short answer
Echo Hills, Colorado: USDA zone 5b, about 132 days between hard freezes, across 364 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Sep 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~132
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 364 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 5b is Echo Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Echo Hills's 132-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Echo Hills
Each reading below is measured for Echo Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEcho Hills runs about 132 days between hard freezes — a short growing season.
Long-maturing crops like melons, sweet potatoes, and winter squash can run out of runway before the first hard freeze, ripening late or not at all.
Lead with fast-maturing varieties, and stretch the season on both ends with cold frames, low tunnels, or a greenhouse.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredEcho Hills sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Echo Hills is in
Echo Hills sits in the Southern Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Echo Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Clear Creek County.
What Grows in Echo Hills
Every plant below cleared Echo Hills's own zone 5b and its 132-day season. Each card opens that plant's Colorado profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Echo 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 Apr 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Sep 29 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Short seasons reward decisiveness — quick-maturing varieties late, hardy greens under cover, and next year’s garlic in the ground before it closes.
What's on the federal record near Echo Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Echo Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- David F Youngblood / Titan TruckingUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Unnamed Rutile OccurrenceMining · 1.2 mi
- Grover MineMining · 1.7 mi
- King Murphy Elementary SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- Mt. Judge Beryl PegmatiteMining · 2.0 mi
- UnknownMining · 2.1 mi
- Mt. JudgeMining · 2.2 mi
- XLN - 17Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- Brandt Beryl-Topaz ProspectMining · 2.5 mi
- Shaffer Hill-Jacobsen Ranch Peg.Mining · 2.6 mi
- Evergreen Fire Protection DistUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- GroverMining · 2.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Echo 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 Echo Hills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Echo Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Echo Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Echo Hills, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Echo Hills — Mining (335 sites) and Nitrate (260 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Echo 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 Echo Hills average
Your land is one point inside Echo Hills
Everything above resolves to Echo Hills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 364 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 Echo Hills Average
Echo Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Echo Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Echo Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Echo Hills's scale: May 20 to Sep 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Echo Hills's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Echo Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Echo Hills, Colorado — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Echo Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Echo Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Echo Hills average
How we know this about Echo 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 Echo Hills’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 Echo Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Echo Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Echo Hills typically lands around May 20, 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 Jun 10.
When is the first frost in Echo Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Echo Hills typically arrives around Sep 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 15, so the watching starts about Aug 30 — about 132 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Echo Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Echo Hills sees about 132 frost-free days — roughly May 20 through Sep 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 10 to Sep 15, about 97 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Echo Hills?
The federal record around Echo Hills runs heavier than most — 703 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (335), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 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 gardeners stretch the season in Echo Hills?
With about 132 frost-free days between hard freezes, Echo Hills rewards the classic extension moves: floating row cover buys roughly two to four extra weeks at each shoulder — on this season that is a working window nearer 160 to 188 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the May 20 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Echo Hills's scale — its 5b band and its 132-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Echo 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 Echo Hills’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Echo Hills's own scale — its own ~132-day season between 28°F freezes, the 364 acres it covers and 703 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Echo Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Echo Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about May 20 and Sep 29 and the ~132-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 703 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Echo Hills, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Echo Hills's boundary and the 364 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~132-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Echo Hills's own centroid, the Southern RockiesUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Echo Hills's 364 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Clear Creek County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Clear Creek County
- The growing challenges every Colorado grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Colorado
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Clear Creek County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Echo Hills's 364 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Echo 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 364 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 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 Echo Hills-wide figureread your own land →