Rock Creek Park, Colorado, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Rock Creek 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 Rock Creek 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 Rock Creek Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Rock Creek Park — the short answer
Rock Creek Park, Colorado: USDA zone 6a, about 169 days between hard freezes, across 170 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~169
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 170 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 6a is Rock Creek Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rock Creek Park's 169-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Rock Creek Park
Each reading below is measured for Rock Creek Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRock Creek Park runs about 169 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredRock Creek Park sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Rock Creek Park is in
Rock Creek Park sits in the Southern Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Rock Creek Park's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: El Paso County is mostly Southwestern Tablelands. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Rock Creek Park
Every plant below cleared Rock Creek Park's own zone 6a and its 169-day season. Each card opens that plant's Colorado profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Rock Creek Park?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 30; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 13 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
What's on the federal record near Rock Creek Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Rock Creek Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SC01506630ADCNitrate · 1.5 mi
- SC01506629BCCNitrate · 1.7 mi
- SC01506629BCANitrate · 1.8 mi
- SC01506619DBDNitrate · 1.9 mi
- SC01506629BBANitrate · 2.0 mi
- SC01506629BADCNitrate · 2.1 mi
- SC01506629BDA1Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- SC01506629BDA2Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- SC01506629BADB2Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- SC01506629BABNitrate · 2.1 mi
- SC01506629BAANitrate · 2.1 mi
- SC01506629BADB1Nitrate · 2.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rock Creek 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 Rock Creek Park.
Total Sites
1,100
within ~10 miles of Rock Creek Park
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
6 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Rock Creek Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Rock Creek Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rock Creek Park, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 368 sites within ~10 miles of Rock Creek Park. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Rock Creek 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 Rock Creek Park average
Your land is one point inside Rock Creek Park
Everything above resolves to Rock Creek Park as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 170 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 Rock Creek Park Average
Rock Creek Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Rock Creek Park
- ●One soil character for all of Rock Creek Park
- ●Frost dates read at Rock Creek Park's scale: Apr 27 to Oct 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rock Creek Park's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Rock Creek Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rock Creek Park, Colorado — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rock Creek Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rock Creek Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rock Creek Park average
How we know this about Rock Creek Park
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 Rock Creek Park’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 Rock Creek Park
When does frost risk typically end in Rock Creek Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rock Creek Park typically lands around Apr 27, 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 May 18.
When is the first frost in Rock Creek Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Rock Creek Park typically arrives around Oct 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 29, so the watching starts about Sep 13 — about 169 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Rock Creek Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rock Creek Park sees about 169 frost-free days — roughly Apr 27 through Oct 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 18 to Sep 29, about 134 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rock Creek Park?
The federal record around Rock Creek Park runs heavier than most — 1,100 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (451), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.5 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 Rock Creek Park?
From about Sep 13 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 Oct 13 (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 Oct 13. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Rock Creek Park's scale — its 6a band and its 169-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rock Creek 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 Rock Creek Park’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Rock Creek Park's own scale — its own ~169-day season between 28°F freezes, the 170 acres it covers and 1,100 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rock Creek Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rock Creek Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 27 and Oct 13 and the ~169-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,100 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Rock Creek Park, the closest Nitrate record about 1.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Rock Creek Park's boundary and the 170 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~169-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Rock Creek Park sits in the Southern Rockies — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Rock Creek Park's 170 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom El Paso County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom El Paso 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 El Paso County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Rock Creek Park's 170 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Rock Creek 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 170 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 1.5 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 Rock Creek Park-wide figureread your own land →
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