Silver Plume, Colorado, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — 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 — okra, cranberry, lavender, and pumpkin — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Silver Plume, 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 Silver Plume 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 Silver Plume — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Silver Plume — the short answer
Silver Plume, Colorado: USDA zone 5b, about 118 days between hard freezes, across 165 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Sep 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~118
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 165 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 Silver Plume's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Silver Plume's 118-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Silver Plume
Each reading below is measured for Silver Plume itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSilver Plume runs about 118 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
MeasuredSilver Plume 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 Silver Plume is in
Silver Plume sits in the Southern Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Silver Plume's own centroid rather than borrowed from Clear Creek County.
What Grows in Silver Plume
Every plant below cleared Silver Plume's own zone 5b and its 118-day season. Each card opens that plant's Colorado profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Silver Plume?
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 30; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Sep 23 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a season this compact, fast finishers and cold-hardy greens do the late work, and garlic tucked in before the freeze repays you next summer.
What's on the federal record near Silver Plume
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Silver Plume. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Buckley StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- HISTORIC RAIL ADVENTURES LLCBrownfields · 750 ft
- George Rowe MillMining · 900 ft
- East ButteMining · 950 ft
- Ricci WinzeMining · 950 ft
- Star of the WestMining · 950 ft
- DuncanMining · 950 ft
- Diamond MillMining · 950 ft
- CroesusMining · 950 ft
- ReindeerMining · 950 ft
- AzedaMining · 950 ft
- CoraMining · 950 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Silver Plume'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 Silver Plume.
Total Sites
401
within ~10 miles of Silver Plume
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Silver Plume
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Silver Plume
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Silver Plume, Mining runs higher than the national average — 346 sites within ~10 miles of Silver Plume. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Silver Plume
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 Silver Plume average
Your land is one point inside Silver Plume
Everything above resolves to Silver Plume as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 165 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 Silver Plume Average
Silver Plume Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Silver Plume
- ●One soil character for all of Silver Plume
- ●Frost dates read at Silver Plume's scale: May 28 to Sep 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Silver Plume's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Silver Plume
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Silver Plume, Colorado — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Silver Plume averages can't show:
We read public map data around Silver Plume — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Silver Plume average
How we know this about Silver Plume
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 Silver Plume’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 Silver Plume
When does frost risk typically end in Silver Plume?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Silver Plume typically lands around May 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Silver Plume?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Silver Plume typically arrives around Sep 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 9, so the watching starts about Aug 24 — about 118 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Silver Plume?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Silver Plume sees about 118 frost-free days — roughly May 28 through Sep 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 18 to Sep 9, about 83 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Silver Plume?
The federal record around Silver Plume runs heavier than most — 401 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (346), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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.
How do gardeners stretch the season in Silver Plume?
With about 118 frost-free days between hard freezes, Silver Plume 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 146 to 174 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the May 28 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Silver Plume's scale — its 5b band and its 118-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Silver Plume'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 Silver Plume’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Silver Plume's own scale — its own ~118-day season between 28°F freezes, the 165 acres it covers and 401 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Silver Plume's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Silver Plume's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about May 28 and Sep 23 and the ~118-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 401 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Silver Plume, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Silver Plume's boundary and the 165 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~118-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Silver Plume's own centroid, the Southern RockiesUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Silver Plume's 165 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 Silver Plume's 165 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Silver Plume you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 165 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Silver Plume-wide figureread your own land →