Holmes Beach, Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 10b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor mango, tomato, orange, and sweet potato, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Holmes Beach, 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 Holmes Beach 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 Holmes Beach — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Holmes Beach — the short answer
Holmes Beach, Florida: USDA zone 10b, about 335 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 10b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 19
- Manatee County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 20
- Manatee County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~335
- Manatee County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- City area
- 1K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Manatee County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 10b is Holmes Beach's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Holmes Beach's 335-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Holmes Beach
Each reading below is measured for Holmes Beach itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsHolmes Beach runs about 335 days between hard freezes (read from Manatee County, the closest normal to Holmes Beach) — 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredHolmes Beach 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 Holmes Beach is in
Holmes Beach sits in the Southern Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Holmes Beach's own centroid rather than borrowed from Manatee County.
What Grows in Holmes Beach
Plants matched to Holmes Beach's USDA zones 10b, ordered by how much hardiness margin each has here — the ones with room to spare at both ends of this town's band lead. Each links to its full growing profile.
Is it too late to plant in Holmes Beach?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 19 (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.
What's on the federal record near Holmes Beach
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Holmes Beach. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ROSSI PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- KEYES MARINABrownfields · 1000 ft
- KEYS MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- HOLMES BEACH AUTOMOTIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- CIRCLE K #7231Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- FRONTIER FL LLC-ANNA MARIAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- ISLAND MARINE LLC **** SEE FACI # 8945265******Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- ISLAND GENERAL STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- HOLMES BEACH BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- MANATEE CNTY SCHOOL BD-ANNA MARIA ELEMUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- PURSELY ZOYSIA GRASS COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CIRCLE K #7520Brownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Holmes Beach'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 Holmes Beach.
Total Sites
404
within ~10 miles of Holmes Beach
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Holmes Beach
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Holmes Beach
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Holmes Beach, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 283 sites within ~10 miles of Holmes Beach. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Holmes Beach
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 Holmes Beach average
Your land is one point inside Holmes Beach
Everything above resolves to Holmes Beach as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 1K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Manatee County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this city’s own centroid. 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 Holmes Beach Average
Holmes Beach Average
- ●USDA Zones 10b, averaged across Holmes Beach
- ●One soil character for all of Holmes Beach
- ●Frost dates read at Holmes Beach's scale: Jan 19 to Dec 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Holmes Beach's 10b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Holmes Beach
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Holmes Beach, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Holmes Beach averages can't show:
We read public map data around Holmes Beach — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Holmes Beach average
How we know this about Holmes Beach
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 at Manatee County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 Holmes Beach
When does frost risk typically end in Holmes Beach?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Holmes Beach typically lands around Jan 19, 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 9.
When is the first frost in Holmes Beach?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Holmes Beach typically arrives around Dec 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Dec 6, so the watching starts about Nov 20 — about 335 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Holmes Beach?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Holmes Beach sees about 335 frost-free days — roughly Jan 19 through Dec 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 9 to Dec 6, about 300 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Holmes Beach?
The federal record around Holmes Beach is a meaningful one — 404 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (283), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Holmes Beach?
From about Nov 20 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Dec 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Dec 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Holmes Beach's scale — its 10b band and its 335-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Holmes Beach'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 Holmes Beach’s own scale
4 of the readings below were taken at Holmes Beach's own scale — the 1,074 acres it covers and 404 documented sites around it; 6 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Holmes Beach's own USDA hardiness band, zones 10bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 404 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Holmes Beach, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Holmes Beach's boundary and the 1,074 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- The ecoregion at Holmes Beach's own centroid, the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Holmes Beach has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Manatee County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Holmes Beach's 1,074 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Manatee County
- The candidate plant list — Florida's curated set, filtered to this zone band and re-ordered by how much margin each has herefrom Florida
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Manatee 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 Manatee County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Holmes Beach's 1,074 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Holmes Beach you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,074 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Holmes Beach-wide figureread your own land →
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