Marion County, in Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Marion County lies within the Northeast Florida — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Marion County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Marion 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 Marion County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Marion County — the short answer
Marion County, Florida: USDA zone 9a, about 314 days between hard freezes, across 1.0M acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~314
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 1.0M 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 9a is Marion County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Marion County's 314-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Marion County
Across a year, Marion County accumulates about 7,559 growing degree days above 50°F, about 174 more than the middle Florida county — ahead of 35 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 92 hours below 45°F, 56 more 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 Marion County
Across Marion County, the ground is predominantly Entisols, where Candler, Astatula, and Arredondo are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally excessively drained with a sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Entisols
Drainage
Excessively drained
Prime farmland
1%
Hydric soils
17%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Marion County
The USDA soil survey maps 43% of Marion County as excessively drained — but another 54% drains differently: 19% poorly drained, 17% well drained.
Candler is the most extensive named soil at 23% of mapped acres, then Astatula (20%) and Arredondo (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 Marion County
Each reading below is measured for Marion 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 Marion 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 Marion County runs about pH 4.8–5.3, 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 17% of Marion 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
MeasuredMarion County runs about 314 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 Marion County is in
Marion 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 Marion County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Marion County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 314-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 Marion County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 14 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around Marion County
- monarch butterfly9 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Marion County
USGS estimates 53,344 lb of 2,4-d on Marion County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Hexazinone (10,104 lb) and Glyphosate (5,911 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 Marion County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Marion County — 1,515 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 10 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 Marion 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 Marion County
Closest first, across Marion County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SILVER RIVER STATE PARKBrownfields · 2500 ft
- DIAMOND OIL #104Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- CHRIS' WELL AT SILVER RV ST.PARK, SILVER SPGS,FLNitrate · 0.9 mi
- FL SILVER SPRINGS INC-CENTRAL FL OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- USGS OBSER WELL CE 47 NEAR OCALA, FLNitrate · 1.1 mi
- RAYN'S WELL AT SILVER RIVER ST.PARK,SILVER SPGS,FLNitrate · 1.1 mi
- SILVER SPRINGS ATTRACTIONBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- CIRCLE K #2838Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- BP STOP N SAVE #1Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- CITGO-SILVER SPRINGS #172Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- SANS SOUCI FARMSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- FINA #6657Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Marion 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 Marion County.
Total Sites
1,515
across Marion County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
10 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Marion County
Severity Distribution
across Marion County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Marion County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 947 sites across Marion County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Marion 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 Marion County average
Your land is one point inside Marion County
Everything above resolves to Marion County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 1.0M 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 Marion County Average
Marion County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Marion County
- ●One soil character for all of Marion County
- ●Frost dates read at Marion County's scale: Feb 3 to Dec 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Marion County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Marion County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Marion County, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Marion County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Marion County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Marion County average
How we know this about Marion 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 Marion County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Marion County
When does frost risk typically end in Marion County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Marion County typically lands around Feb 3, 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 24.
How long is the growing season in Marion County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Marion County sees about 314 frost-free days — roughly Feb 3 through Dec 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 24 to Nov 30, about 279 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Marion County?
The federal record around Marion County is a meaningful one — 1,515 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (947), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Marion County's scale — its 9a band and its 314-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Marion 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 Marion County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Marion County's own scale — its own ~314-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,515 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Marion County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Marion County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~314-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Marion CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,515 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Marion County's boundary and the 1,016,603 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~314-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Marion County sitting wholly inside the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Marion County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Marion 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 Marion County — the ~314 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 Marion County's 1,016,603 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,515 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 Marion Countyread your own land →