Collier County, in Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 10a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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.
Collier County lies within the Southwest Florida (Naples–Fort Myers–Sarasota) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring
Collier County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Collier County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Collier County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Collier County — the short answer
Collier County, Florida: USDA zone 10a, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 1.3M acres.
- USDA zone
- 10a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Killing freeze
- None on record
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991–2020, county record
- County area
- 1.3M 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
Frost-free — but not in every corner
Collier County's own 30-year record carries no 28°F killing freeze. That is measured at the county's record, though, not promised for every acre in it — and 2 towns inside it have their own 30-year record showing a killing freeze: Ave Maria (a 327-day season) and Immokalee (330).
Those are measured records, not estimates. If you garden in one of those pockets, plant against your own town's season rather than the county's.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record
Zone 10a is Collier County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Collier County's no killing freeze on record, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Collier County
Across a year, Collier County accumulates about 9,083 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,698 more than the middle Florida county — ahead of 62 of Florida’s 67 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 0 hours below 45°F, 36 fewer than the Florida middle of 36. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Collier County
Across Collier County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Cypress Lake, Riviera, and Immokalee are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3–6.1, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Hydric soils
76%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Collier County
The USDA soil survey maps 53% of Collier County as poorly drained — but another 37% drains differently: 35% very poorly drained, 2% somewhat poorly drained.
Cypress Lake is the most extensive named soil at 12% of mapped acres, then Riviera (12%) and Immokalee (8%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Collier County
Each reading below is measured for Collier County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Collier County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group A/D — ground that sheds water slowly.
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
MeasuredTopsoil across Collier County runs about pH 5.3–6.1, on the acidic side.
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
Season length
MeasuredCollier County records no 28°F killing freeze at all across the 30-year station record — year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredCollier County 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 Collier County is in
Collier County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southern Florida Coastal Plain (84%) and Southern Coastal Plain (16%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Collier County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Collier County's own USDA zone 10a and its own 365-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile.
Documented around Collier County
- monarch butterfly18 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Collier County
USGS estimates 15,733 lb of Glyphosate on Collier County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (5,602 lb) and Triclopyr (4,618 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Collier County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Collier County — 1,574 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Collier County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Collier County
Closest first, across Collier County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ROLLING HILLS GOLF & TENNIS CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- C - 307Nitrate · 4.3 mi
- C - 390Nitrate · 5.3 mi
- US FWS - FL PANTHER NATL WILDL REFUGEBrownfields · 5.4 mi
- C - 116Nitrate · 6.5 mi
- C-00986Nitrate · 6.6 mi
- FCA FLORIDA EVALUATION CTRUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.2 mi
- FLORIDA EVALUATION CENTERBrownfields · 7.5 mi
- C - 308Nitrate · 8.7 mi
- 3780 32nd Ave SENitrate · 8.8 mi
- 4661 14th Ave SENitrate · 9.2 mi
- C-00974Nitrate · 9.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Collier County'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 Collier County.
Total Sites
1,574
across Collier County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Collier County
Severity Distribution
across Collier County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Collier County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 568 sites across Collier County. 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 Collier County
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 Collier County average
Your land is one point inside Collier County
Everything above resolves to Collier County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 1.3M 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Collier County Average
Collier County Average
- ●USDA Zones 10a, averaged across Collier County
- ●One soil character for all of Collier County
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Collier County's 10a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Collier County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Collier County, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Collier County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Collier County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Collier County average
How we know this about Collier County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Collier County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Collier County
Is it too late to plant in Collier County?
No — Collier County 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 Collier County?
It doesn't — Collier County 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 Collier County?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Collier County 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 Collier County?
The federal record around Collier County is a meaningful one — 1,574 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (568), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 4.1 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 Collier County's scale — its 10a band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Collier County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Florida's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Collier County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Collier County's own scale — a 30-year record with no killing freeze in it, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,574 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Collier County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10aUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in Collier County's own 30-year station record — a year-round growing season, measured here rather than inheritedNOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Collier CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,574 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 4.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Collier County's boundary and the 1,278,087 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 10a and a ~365-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Collier County spans, Southern Florida Coastal Plain the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Collier County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Collier County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Florida grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Florida
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Collier County — the ~365 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Collier County's 1,278,087 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,574 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Collier Countyread your own land →