The Crowley's Ridge spans USDA hardiness zones 7b-8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A loess ridge rising two hundred feet out of the Delta's flatness — the well-drained upland that carried Arkansas's historic orchards, running 7b-8a from Piggott to Helena through country that is otherwise alluvial bottomland; the differentiator is the ground itself: deep, drained loess where the Delta holds water. Among the crops suited to this profile: tomato, sweet potato, peach, and muscadine grape. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
The Crowley's Ridge spans Arkansas.
Your yard isn't all of the Crowley's Ridge.
The Crowley's Ridge spans USDA zones 7b-8a, but your parcel sits in exactly one — and slope, tree cover, and low spots nudge it further. 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 Crowley's Ridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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The Crowley's Ridge — the short answer
The Crowley's Ridge: USDA zones 7b-8a, 256–266 frost-free days, in Arkansas.
- USDA zones
- 7b-8a
- USDA PHZM 2023, aggregated over the footprint
- Frost-free season
- 256–266 days
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- Towns
- 9
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Region type
- Town cluster
- Growable Ground growing-region registry
Region boundary: Growable Ground growing-region registry — curated county clusters, EPA Level III ecoregions, and town clusters drawn finer than any county. Where a region publishes no measured season, no season figure is shown.
Hardiness Zone Range
What Grows in the Crowley's Ridge
Plants matched to the Crowley's Ridge's USDA zones 7b-8a, ordered by how much hardiness margin each has across the region — the ones with room to spare at both ends of this band lead. Each links to its full growing profile.
Native Plants of the Crowley's Ridge
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in this region’s state, kept only where the published hardiness range meets the Crowley's Ridge’s USDA zones 7b-8a — closest range match first. Presence is recorded by state, so a plant can be documented across the state and still be scarce in your corner of the region.
The ground around the Crowley's Ridge
The USDA soil survey maps this ground county by county. These are those records weighted by land area across the eight counties containing the Crowley's Ridge — the ground the Crowley's Ridge sits in, read at the only grain the survey publishes.
In the counties containing the Crowley's Ridge, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, at 58% of mapped acres, followed by Vertisols (15%), Entisols (14%) and Inceptisols (10%). Six soil orders appear in that record, which is the honest reason a regional soil answer only goes so far. The most extensive named soils are Henry, Loring, and Sharkey.
53% of those acres are poorly drained, and another 23% somewhat poorly drained, 13% moderately well drained. Topsoil pH runs 5.3–6.8 between the lowest and the highest county on record. 27% of the footprint is classed prime farmland.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Topsoil pH
5.3–6.8
Hydric soils
53%
Soil changes across a driveway, so which of these your own ground sits on is a parcel question rather than a regional one. Poinsett County holds the most wetland ground here, at 61% — soil types explained.
USDA NRCS SSURGO via Soil Data Access
What this means for growing in the Crowley's Ridge
The soil survey reads this ground county by county, and the readings above are the record for the counties containing the Crowley's Ridge. Here is what they mean for a garden here — and the move an experienced grower makes about each one.
Drainage
From county records53% of the mapped acres across the counties containing the Crowley's Ridge are poorly drained — ground that sheds water slowly. The survey maps this ground county-wide, so it describes the setting the Crowley's Ridge sits in rather than the valley floor alone.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
From county recordsTopsoil across the counties containing the Crowley's Ridge runs pH 5.3–6.8 — acidic in five of its eight counties.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across the Crowley's Ridge — and how to grow with it.
Across the 8 counties containing the Crowley's Ridge the federal record holds 1,823 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks (1,097), Nitrate (398) and Brownfields (196). The heaviest single county is Craighead County, with 477.
That is the containing counties' count — this region is a smaller piece of that ground, so it is context, not a reading of any one lot. Open the map outlined to the Crowley's Ridge to see which records sit where you actually grow.
Sources Checked
Summed across the 8 counties containing the Crowley's Ridge
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around the Crowley's Ridge, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 18 sites across the 8 counties containing the Crowley's Ridge. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Your land is one point inside the Crowley's Ridge
Everything above resolves to the Crowley's Ridge as a whole — a footprint spanning USDA zones 7b-8a. Your parcel sits in exactly one of them. 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 region 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 regional average.
Your Lot vs the Crowley's Ridge Average
Crowley's Ridge Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b-8a, averaged across Crowley's Ridge
- ●One soil character for all of Crowley's Ridge
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Crowley's Ridge's 7b-8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in the Crowley's Ridge
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in the Crowley's Ridge — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, contamination, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Crowley's Ridge averages can't show:
We read public map data around The Crowley's Ridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Crowley's Ridge average
How we know this about the Crowley's Ridge
The boundary: the region's own towns — a footprint finer than any county, because the county average would misread this microclimate. Growing regions have no official boundary, so this footprint is our published one, and every figure on this page was measured over the towns inside it rather than borrowed from the state around it.
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, aggregated across the footprint; the growing season from NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS 1991–2020 28°F normals, read at each member’s own record; boundaries from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination record from the federal sources named in that beat above; the soil from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, read at each member county’s own record and weighted to this footprint by land area. Where a member carries no record of its own, it is absent from the figure rather than filled in.
Common questions about the Crowley's Ridge
What hardiness zone is the Crowley's Ridge?
The Crowley's Ridge spans USDA hardiness zones 7b-8a, aggregated from the USDA Agricultural Research Service Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 across the region's own towns. Zones reflect average annual extreme minimum temperatures from 1991–2020 data.
How long is the growing season in the Crowley's Ridge?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, the Crowley's Ridge's towns mostly run 258 to 263 frost-free days, median 258 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991–2020, over 7 member towns). That 5-day spread is the honest read — no single season describes 7 towns, and each town guide below carries its own.
When does frost risk end in the Crowley's Ridge?
Across the Crowley's Ridge, the middle half of member towns see their last 28°F hard freeze between Mar 7 and Mar 11 (median Mar 9), and their first fall freeze between Nov 23 and Nov 24. Those are hard freezes, not the last light frost: tender transplants wait for about Mar 30, and elevation decides which end of a 4-day spread you garden in.
What grows well in the Crowley's Ridge?
The Crowley's Ridge's conditions suit plants such as Tomato, Sweet Potato, Peach, Muscadine Grape, Blackberry. What actually thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage — we score each plant against the real conditions at your address.
How is the Crowley's Ridge defined?
The Crowley's Ridge is a true microclimate — smaller than the counties that contain it, with a growing reality of its own. So this page is built from the region's own 9 towns, each carrying its own hardiness zone and frost record, rather than from a county average measured somewhere else.
Which states does the Crowley's Ridge cover?
The Crowley's Ridge spans Arkansas. Each state's full growing guide is linked on this page.
What other growing regions cover the same states?
Mississippi Delta, The Ozarks, West Gulf Coastal Plain (South Arkansas), Ouachita Mountains, and Arkansas River Valley share at least one state with the Crowley's Ridge. Growing regions overlap and interlock — a single address can sit inside more than one, which is why the precise read is always the parcel, not the region.
What this page reads at the Crowley's Ridge’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at the Crowley's Ridge's own scale — the zone 7b-8a band across its footprint, a median 258-day season across its 7 towns and 1,823 documented federal contamination records across its 8 counties, 477 of them in Craighead County alone; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The USDA hardiness band 7b-8a aggregated across all 9 towns in the footprintUSDA PHZM 2023
- The boundary itself — the 9 towns this region is curated fromGrowable Ground subregion registry
- The growing character that makes this region distinct from the states it crossesGrowable Ground subregion registry
- The 28°F season across the footprint — the middle half of its 7 towns run 258 to 263 frost-free days, median 258NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- The federal contamination record over the whole footprint — 1,823 documented federal contamination records across its 8 counties, 477 of them in Craighead County aloneEPA, USGS and USDA federal site records
- The soil order mix across the footprint — 58% Alfisols, topsoil pH 5.3–6.8, area-weighted across its 8 mapped countiesUSDA NRCS SSURGO
Inherited from a wider read
- The candidate plant list — its state's curated sets, merged and filtered to zones 7b-8afrom Arkansas
What this page can’t tell you
- Which end of the 5-day range your ground sits at — 258 days at one extreme, 263 at the other, decided mostly by elevationfrost dates explained →
- Which of those soils your own ground sits on — the survey maps them county-wide, and they change across a drivewaysoil types explained →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on one specific lotwhy one lot differs from the next →
Explore the Crowley's Ridge
State growing guides
Towns in this region
Counties containing this region
Other growing regions across Arkansas
The flat, deep, dark alluvial bottomland of the lower Mississippi River — extraordinarily fertile cotton, soybean, rice, and sweet-potato ground.
A rugged Interior Highlands of cherty, rocky soils, oak-hickory forest, and clear streams — brambles, peaches, and tough hill gardens.
South Arkansas's pine Timberlands are the warmest, longest-season corner of the state — USDA zones 8a-8b with roughly 256-278 frost-free days (per county_data.json) — but the real signature is the ground: sandy, acidic, well-drained Coastal Plain soils under the pine belt, not the heavy dark alluvium of the Delta to the east or the rocky uplands to the north. That pairing — a long southern season on light, low-pH pine-flatwoods beds — pushes the playbook toward acid-tolerant and heat-loving Southern staples, raised quick-draining beds, and liming/organic-matter management that the Delta and mountain pages never need to cover. Around El Dorado, Camden, Magnolia, and Texarkana this is a distinct crop-and-soil story the statewide and tidal gulf-coast pages both miss.
Arkansas's Ouachita Mountains run in long east-west acidic rock ridges and cool hollows — an Interior Highlands division of thin cherty soil and steep slope aspect, unlike any flat ground in the state. The higher western counties hold zone 7b-8a and a shorter frost-free window (Montgomery ~232 days, Polk ~245) than the 8a bottomlands, so hill gardening here is a slope, aspect, and drainage story the state's 8a/254 median can't tell.
The Arkansas River Valley — one of Arkansas's six natural divisions, threading the Arkansas River between the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains — spans USDA zones 7b to 8a across its eight member counties, with frost-free seasons of roughly 243 to 254 days.