Telluride, Colorado, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include okra, cranberry, lavender, and pumpkin; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Telluride, 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 Telluride 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 Telluride — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Telluride — the short answer
Telluride, Colorado: USDA zone 5a, about 117 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Sep 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~117
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 5a is Telluride's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Telluride's 117-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Telluride
Each reading below is measured for Telluride itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTelluride runs about 117 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
MeasuredTelluride sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
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 Telluride is in
Telluride sits in the Southern Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Telluride's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: San Miguel County is mostly Colorado Plateaus. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Telluride
Every plant below cleared Telluride's own zone 5a and its 117-day season. Each card opens that plant's Colorado profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Telluride?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around May 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Sep 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even here the calendar’s edges hold value: thirty-day greens late in the window, then garlic and a rested bed for spring.
What's on the federal record near Telluride
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Telluride. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Telluride ConocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- Telluride School DistrictUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- Telluride Public SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- CenturyLink Telluride CDOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- North SlopeMining · 2100 ft
- Court House-DynamoMining · 2100 ft
- Last Dollar MillMining · 2100 ft
- Grace MineMining · 2100 ft
- Telluride Fire StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- ParagonMining · 1.1 mi
- Telluride MineMining · 1.1 mi
- Liberty Bell MillMining · 1.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Telluride'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 Telluride.
Total Sites
432
within ~10 miles of Telluride
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
15 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Telluride
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Telluride
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Telluride, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Telluride — Mining (374 sites) and Superfund (15 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Telluride
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 Telluride average
Your land is one point inside Telluride
Everything above resolves to Telluride as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Telluride Average
Telluride Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Telluride
- ●One soil character for all of Telluride
- ●Frost dates read at Telluride's scale: May 30 to Sep 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Telluride's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Telluride
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Telluride, Colorado — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Telluride averages can't show:
We read public map data around Telluride — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Telluride average
How we know this about Telluride
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 Telluride’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 Telluride
When does frost risk typically end in Telluride?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Telluride typically lands around May 30, 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 20.
When is the first frost in Telluride?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Telluride typically arrives around Sep 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 10, so the watching starts about Aug 25 — about 117 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Telluride?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Telluride sees about 117 frost-free days — roughly May 30 through Sep 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 20 to Sep 10, about 82 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Telluride?
The federal record around Telluride runs heavier than most — 432 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (374), 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 Telluride?
With about 117 frost-free days between hard freezes, Telluride 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 145 to 173 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the May 30 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Telluride's scale — its 5a band and its 117-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Telluride'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 Telluride’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Telluride's own scale — its own ~117-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,415 acres it covers and 432 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Telluride's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Telluride's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about May 30 and Sep 24 and the ~117-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 432 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Telluride, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Telluride's boundary and the 1,415 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~117-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Telluride 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 Telluride's 1,415 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom San Miguel County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom San Miguel 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 San Miguel County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Telluride's 1,415 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Telluride you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,415 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 Telluride-wide figureread your own land →
More in Colorado
Wider growing context
What grows across ColoradoTelluride sits outside our named growing regions, so Colorado as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides