Hernando County, in Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Hernando County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Hernando 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 Hernando County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Hernando County — the short answer
Hernando County, Florida: USDA zone 9b, about 321 days between hard freezes, across 303K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~321
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 303K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 9b is Hernando County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hernando County's 321-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Hernando County
Across a year, Hernando County accumulates about 7,809 growing degree days above 50°F, about 424 more than the middle Florida county — ahead of 39 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 Hernando County
Across Hernando County, the ground is predominantly Entisols, where Candler, Arredondo, and Nobleton are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally excessively drained with a fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Entisols
Drainage
Excessively drained
Prime farmland
0%
Hydric soils
23%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Hernando County
The USDA soil survey maps 36% of Hernando County as excessively drained — but another 59% drains differently: 17% poorly drained, 16% very poorly drained.
Candler is the most extensive named soil at 34% of mapped acres, then Arredondo (6%) and Nobleton (6%).
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 Hernando County
Each reading below is measured for Hernando 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 Hernando County are excessively drained, in hydrologic group A — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Hernando County runs about pH 5.3, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 23% of Hernando County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredHernando County runs about 321 days between hard freezes — close to 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
The kind of country Hernando County is in
Hernando County sits in the Southern Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Hernando County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Hernando County's own USDA zone 9b and its own 321-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.
Is it too late to plant in Hernando County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 20 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
Documented around Hernando County
- monarch butterfly5 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Hernando County
USGS estimates 11,162 lb of 2,4-d on Hernando County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Hexazinone (2,089 lb) and Glyphosate (1,964 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 Hernando County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Hernando County — 463 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 21 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Hernando 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 Hernando County
Closest first, across Hernando County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OAK HILL HOSPITALUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- ALL SAINTS SURGERY CTRUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- TIRE KINGDOM #6080Brownfields · 1.5 mi
- CIRCLE K #00566Underground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- DICK'S HEATING & AIR CONDITIONING INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- O'REILLY AUTO PARTS #4895Brownfields · 1.6 mi
- HERNANDO CNTY-FAIRLANE AVE FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- OAK HILL HOSPITALBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- ENCOMPASS HEALTH REHABILITATION HOSPITAL OF SPRING HILLBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- FLORIDA CANCER SPECIALISTS & RESEARCH INSTITUTE LLCBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- WALGREENSBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- WAWA #5184Brownfields · 1.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hernando 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 Hernando County.
Total Sites
463
across Hernando County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
21 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Hernando County
Severity Distribution
across Hernando County
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 Hernando 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 Hernando County average
Your land is one point inside Hernando County
Everything above resolves to Hernando County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 303K 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 Hernando County Average
Hernando County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Hernando County
- ●One soil character for all of Hernando County
- ●Frost dates read at Hernando County's scale: Feb 2 to Dec 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hernando County's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Hernando County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hernando County, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hernando County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hernando County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hernando County average
How we know this about Hernando 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 Hernando County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Hernando County
When does frost risk typically end in Hernando County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hernando County typically lands around Feb 2, 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 Feb 23.
How long is the growing season in Hernando County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hernando County sees about 321 frost-free days — roughly Feb 2 through Dec 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 23 to Dec 6, about 286 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hernando County?
The federal record around Hernando County is a meaningful one — 463 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (252), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 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 Hernando County's scale — its 9b band and its 321-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hernando 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 Hernando County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Hernando County's own scale — its own ~321-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 463 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hernando County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hernando County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~321-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Hernando CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 463 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Hernando County's boundary and the 302,709 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~321-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Hernando County sitting wholly inside the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Hernando County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Hernando 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 Hernando County — the ~321 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 Hernando County's 302,709 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 463 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 Hernando Countyread your own land →