Highland Acres, Delaware, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Highland Acres, 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 Highland Acres 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 Highland Acres — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Highland Acres — the short answer
Highland Acres, Delaware: USDA zone 7b, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 955 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 955 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 7b is Highland Acres's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Highland Acres's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Highland Acres
Each reading below is measured for Highland Acres itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHighland Acres runs about 240 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredHighland Acres sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Highland Acres is in
Highland Acres sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Highland Acres's own centroid rather than borrowed from Kent County.
What Grows in Highland Acres
Every plant below cleared Highland Acres's own zone 7b and its 240-day season. Each card opens that plant's Delaware profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Highland Acres?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Highland Acres
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Highland Acres, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Highland Acres
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Highland Acres. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Royal Farms Store #139Underground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- ROYAL FARMS #139Brownfields · 750 ft
- Reed BrothersUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Moores Lake Pump Station # 3Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CARL KING BULK PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- Cartanza Oil CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Lakeside Dairy Market DoverUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- GREEN CLINICS LABORATORYBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- Tidbury Branch Pump Station #15Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- JG Executive Limo ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Isaacs Branch Pump Station #14Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Dover Air Force Base Pump Station #6Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Highland Acres'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 Highland Acres.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Highland Acres
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Highland Acres
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Highland Acres
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 Highland Acres average
Your land is one point inside Highland Acres
Everything above resolves to Highland Acres as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 955 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 Highland Acres Average
Highland Acres Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Highland Acres
- ●One soil character for all of Highland Acres
- ●Frost dates read at Highland Acres's scale: Mar 24 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Highland Acres's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Highland Acres
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Highland Acres, Delaware — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Highland Acres averages can't show:
We read public map data around Highland Acres — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Highland Acres average
How we know this about Highland Acres
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 Highland Acres’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 Highland Acres
When does frost risk typically end in Highland Acres?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Highland Acres typically lands around Mar 24, 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 Apr 14.
When is the first frost in Highland Acres?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Highland Acres typically arrives around Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 5, so the watching starts about Oct 20 — about 240 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Highland Acres?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Highland Acres sees about 240 frost-free days — roughly Mar 24 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 14 to Nov 5, about 205 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Highland Acres?
The federal record around Highland Acres runs heavier than most — 657 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (370), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Highland Acres?
From about Oct 20 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 Nov 19 (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 Nov 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Highland Acres's scale — its 7b band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Highland Acres'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 Highland Acres’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Highland Acres's own scale — its own ~240-day season between 28°F freezes, the 955 acres it covers and 657 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Highland Acres's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Highland Acres's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 24 and Nov 19 and the ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 657 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Highland Acres, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Highland Acres's boundary and the 955 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~240-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Highland Acres's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Highland Acreslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Highland Acres's 955 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Kent County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Kent County
- The growing challenges every Delaware grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Delaware
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Kent County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Highland Acres's 955 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Highland Acres you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 955 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Highland Acres-wide figureread your own land →