Lee County, in Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 10b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
A short list that earns its place here — artichoke, meyer lemon, california poppy, and cabbage — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Lee 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
Lee County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Lee 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 Lee County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Lee County — the short answer
Lee County, Florida: USDA zone 10b, no 28°F killing freeze on record — the season is year-round, across 500K acres.
- USDA zone
- 10b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Killing freeze
- None on record
- NOAA RCC ACIS 1991–2020, county record
- County area
- 500K 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
Lee 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: Charleston Park (a 330-day season) and Alva (331).
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 10b is Lee County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lee County's no killing freeze on record, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Lee County
Across a year, Lee County accumulates about 9,107 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,722 more than the middle Florida county — ahead of 63 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 Lee County
Across Lee County, the ground is predominantly Spodosols, where Immokalee, Pineda, and Oldsmar are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3–6.2, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A/D soils.
Soil order
Spodosols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Hydric soils
49%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Lee County
The USDA soil survey maps 42% of Lee County as poorly drained — but another 30% drains differently: 19% very poorly drained, 10% somewhat poorly drained.
Immokalee is the most extensive named soil at 12% of mapped acres, then Pineda (11%) and Oldsmar (10%).
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 Lee County
Each reading below is measured for Lee 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 Lee 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 Lee County runs about pH 5.3–6.2, 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
MeasuredLee 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
MeasuredLee County sits in USDA hardiness zone 10b.
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 Lee County is in
Lee County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southern Coastal Plain (88%) and Southern Florida Coastal Plain (12%). 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 Lee County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Lee County's own USDA zone 10b 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 Lee County
- monarch butterfly158 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Lee County
USGS estimates 16,674 lb of Glyphosate on Lee County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (8,009 lb) and Triclopyr (6,800 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 Lee County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Lee County — 2,366 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 Lee 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 Lee County
Closest first, across Lee County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 7-ELEVEN STORE #35367Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- PUBLIX SUPER MARKET #1327Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- CAPE CORAL LIFT STATION #401Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- CAPE CORAL RENT A CAR INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- CAPE CORAL CITY-DUAL WTR SYSTEM CPS #2Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- 7-ELEVEN FOOD STORE #32620Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- WALMART NEIGHBORHOOD MKT 5451Brownfields · 1.2 mi
- WALGREENS STORE #4645Brownfields · 1.4 mi
- CIRCLE K CAPE CORALBrownfields · 1.4 mi
- CIRCLE K #1735Underground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- CIRCLE K #1719Underground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- PUBLIX SUPER MARKET #418Brownfields · 1.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lee 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 Lee County.
Total Sites
2,366
across Lee County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Lee County
Severity Distribution
across Lee County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Lee 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 Lee County average
Your land is one point inside Lee County
Everything above resolves to Lee County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 500K 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 Lee County Average
Lee County Average
- ●USDA Zones 10b, averaged across Lee County
- ●One soil character for all of Lee County
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lee County's 10b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Lee County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lee County, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lee County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lee County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lee County average
How we know this about Lee 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 Lee County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Lee County
Is it too late to plant in Lee County?
No — Lee 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 Lee County?
It doesn't — Lee 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 Lee County?
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Lee 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 Lee County?
The federal record around Lee County is a meaningful one — 2,366 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (1,067), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Lee County's scale — its 10b band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Lee 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 Lee County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Lee County's own scale — a 30-year record with no killing freeze in it, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 2,366 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lee County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10bUSDA PHZM 2023
- No 28°F killing freeze in Lee 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 Lee CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 2,366 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Lee County's boundary and the 499,956 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 10b and a ~365-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Lee County spans, Southern Coastal Plain the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Lee County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Lee 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 Lee 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 Lee County's 499,956 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 2,366 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 Lee Countyread your own land →