Clearwater, Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 10a — 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 artichoke, meyer lemon, california poppy, and cabbage; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Clearwater, 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 Clearwater 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 Clearwater — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Clearwater — the short answer
Clearwater, Florida: USDA zone 10a, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 17K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 10a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Killing freeze
- None on record
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991–2020, this town’s own record
- City area
- 17K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. The year-round finding is measured — a 30-year record with no 28°F killing freeze in it — never inferred from missing dates.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 10a is Clearwater's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Clearwater's no killing freeze on record, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Clearwater
Each reading below is measured for Clearwater itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Winter hardiness
MeasuredClearwater sits in USDA hardiness zone 10a.
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 Clearwater is in
Clearwater sits in the Southern Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Clearwater's own centroid rather than borrowed from Pinellas County.
What Grows in Clearwater
Every plant below cleared Clearwater's own zone 10a. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile. How we score.
What's on the federal record near Clearwater
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Clearwater. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RAINBOW FOOD MART #5508Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- CLEARWATER CITY PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- CLEARWATER, CITY OF - WATER TREATMENTBrownfields · 2300 ft
- WAL-MART NEIGHBORHOOD MARKET #4667Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- BP AMOCO #573Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- BP AMOCO #573Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLAG CREWBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- TRUSS PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CLEARWATER ROOF TRUSSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CHEVRON #47022-SANDY'SUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- UNITED OIL CO #211Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- MOTIVA ENTERPRISES LLC (TEXACO #24-203-0049)Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Clearwater'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 Clearwater.
Total Sites
2,605
within ~10 miles of Clearwater
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Clearwater
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Clearwater
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Clearwater, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 678 sites within ~10 miles of Clearwater. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Clearwater
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 Clearwater average
Your land is one point inside Clearwater
Everything above resolves to Clearwater as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 17K 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 city 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 Clearwater Average
Clearwater Average
- ●USDA Zones 10a, averaged across Clearwater
- ●One soil character for all of Clearwater
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Clearwater's 10a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Clearwater
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Clearwater, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Clearwater averages can't show:
We read public map data around Clearwater — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Clearwater average
How we know this about Clearwater
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals, with the labelled statewide window where none resolves; 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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Clearwater
Is it too late to plant in Clearwater?
No — Clearwater has no 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record, so the growing season is year-round and there is no last-frost date to wait for. Planting is paced by rainfall, heat and daylength instead of by frost: start heat-lovers any month, and time cool-season crops (lettuce, brassicas, peas) for the cooler, wetter half of the year or for higher ground. Succession sowing every few weeks works all year, so the limit is what you can keep watered and harvested, not the calendar.
When does frost risk typically end in Clearwater?
It doesn't — Clearwater records no 28°F killing freeze at all across the 1991–2020 station record, so there is no spring frost date to plant after. Cold still matters with elevation: the higher you garden, the cooler the nights, and a few tropical crops sulk below about 60°F even where they never freeze.
How long is the growing season in Clearwater?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Clearwater contains no 28°F killing freeze, so there is no season to measure between freezes. What paces planting instead is heat, rainfall and daylength: the hottest, wettest stretch is the hard part for cool-season crops, not winter. Elevation is the one real exception — the higher you garden, the colder the nights get.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Clearwater?
The federal record around Clearwater is a meaningful one — 2,605 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,017), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
Everything above is measured at Clearwater's scale — its 10a band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Clearwater'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 Clearwater’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Clearwater's own scale — the 16,755 acres it covers and 2,605 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Clearwater's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10aUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record covering Clearwater — a year-round growing seasonNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- 2,605 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Clearwater, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Clearwater's boundary and the 16,755 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear Clearwater's hardiness zoneGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Clearwater's own centroid, the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Clearwater's 16,755 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Pinellas County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Pinellas County
- The growing challenges every Florida grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Florida
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Pinellas County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Clearwater's 16,755 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Clearwater you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 16,755 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Clearwater-wide figureread your own land →
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