Winter Park, 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.
The conditions favor okra, blackberry, lavender, and pumpkin, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Winter 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 Winter 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 Winter Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Winter Park — the short answer
Winter Park, Colorado: USDA zone 5b, about 113 days between hard freezes, across 11K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jun 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Sep 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~113
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 11K 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 Winter Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Winter Park's 113-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Winter Park
Each reading below is measured for Winter Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWinter Park runs about 113 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
MeasuredWinter Park 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 Winter Park is in
Winter Park sits in the Southern Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Winter Park's own centroid rather than borrowed from Grand County.
What Grows in Winter Park
Every plant below cleared Winter Park's own zone 5b and its 113-day season. Each card opens that plant's Colorado profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Winter Park?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around May 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jun 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Sep 22 — 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 Winter Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Winter Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Hughes LiftUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Winter Park Eskimo LiftUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Apollo LiftUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Olympia LiftUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Gemini / Endeavor LiftsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Challenger LiftUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Ironhorse LiftUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Looking Glass LiftUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Mid MountainUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Prospector LiftUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Pony Express LiftUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Discovery LiftUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Winter 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 Winter Park.
Total Sites
159
within ~10 miles of Winter Park
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Winter Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Winter Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Winter Park, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Winter Park — Mining (52 sites) and Nitrate (52 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 Winter 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 Winter Park average
Your land is one point inside Winter Park
Everything above resolves to Winter Park as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 11K 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 Winter Park Average
Winter Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Winter Park
- ●One soil character for all of Winter Park
- ●Frost dates read at Winter Park's scale: Jun 1 to Sep 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Winter Park's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Winter Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Winter Park, Colorado — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Winter Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Winter Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Winter Park average
How we know this about Winter 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 Winter 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 Winter Park
When does frost risk typically end in Winter Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Winter Park typically lands around Jun 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Winter Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Winter Park typically arrives around Sep 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 8, so the watching starts about Aug 23 — about 113 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Winter Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Winter Park sees about 113 frost-free days — roughly Jun 1 through Sep 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Jun 22 to Sep 8, about 78 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Winter Park?
The federal record around Winter Park runs heavier than most — 159 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (52), 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 Winter Park?
With about 113 frost-free days between hard freezes, Winter Park 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 141 to 169 days — and cold frames or low tunnels buy more. Starting transplants indoors ahead of the Jun 1 hard-freeze normal stretches the season without touching the calendar.
Everything above is measured at Winter Park's scale — its 5b band and its 113-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Winter 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 Winter Park’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Winter Park's own scale — its own ~113-day season between 28°F freezes, the 10,892 acres it covers and 159 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Winter Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Winter Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Jun 1 and Sep 22 and the ~113-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 159 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Winter Park, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Winter Park's boundary and the 10,892 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~113-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Winter Park's own centroid, the Southern RockiesUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Winter Park's 10,892 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Grand County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Grand 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 Grand County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Winter Park's 10,892 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Winter 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 10,892 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 Winter Park-wide figureread your own land →
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