Temple Terrace, Florida, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Temple Terrace, 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 Temple Terrace 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 Temple Terrace — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Temple Terrace — the short answer
Temple Terrace, Florida: USDA zone 9b, about 331 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~331
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 5K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 Temple Terrace's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Temple Terrace's 331-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Temple Terrace
Each reading below is measured for Temple Terrace itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTemple Terrace runs about 331 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredTemple Terrace sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b.
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 Temple Terrace is in
Temple Terrace sits in the Southern Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Temple Terrace's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hillsborough County.
What Grows in Temple Terrace
Every plant below cleared Temple Terrace's own zone 9b and its 331-day season. Each card opens that plant's Florida profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Temple Terrace?
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 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 18 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
What's on the federal record near Temple Terrace
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Temple Terrace. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TERRACE HILLS CIR 197' FLRD WELL AT TEMP TERR FLNitrate · 1100 ft
- TERRACE HILLS CIR 75' FLRD WELL AT TEMPLE TERR FLNitrate · 1100 ft
- TERRACE HILLS CIRCLE NRSD WELL AT TEMPLE TERR FLNitrate · 1100 ft
- TEMPLE TERRACE CITY-E PUMP STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- JAQUELINE ARBOR RET POND NRSD W NR TEMPLE TERR FLNitrate · 1800 ft
- REC CTR AT GILLETTE AVE 200' FLRD W NR TEMP TER FLNitrate · 1900 ft
- REC CTR AT GILLETTE AVE 75' FLRD W NR TEMP TERR FLNitrate · 1900 ft
- REC CTR AT GILLETTE AVE 23' NRSD W NR TEMP TERR FLNitrate · 2000 ft
- GOLF CLUB AT CYPRESS CREEKUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- 113TH AVE REC CTR ICGU WELL AT TEMPLE TERRACE FLNitrate · 0.5 mi
- 113TH AVE REC CTR FLRD WELL AT TEMPLE TERRACE FLNitrate · 0.5 mi
- RAILWAY PK 77' FLRD WELL NEAR TEMPLE TERRACE FLNitrate · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Temple Terrace'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 Temple Terrace.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Temple Terrace
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Temple Terrace
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Temple Terrace, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 60 sites within ~10 miles of Temple Terrace. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Temple Terrace
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 Temple Terrace average
Your land is one point inside Temple Terrace
Everything above resolves to Temple Terrace as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 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 Temple Terrace Average
Temple Terrace Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Temple Terrace
- ●One soil character for all of Temple Terrace
- ●Frost dates read at Temple Terrace's scale: Jan 21 to Dec 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Temple Terrace's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Temple Terrace
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Temple Terrace, Florida — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Temple Terrace averages can't show:
We read public map data around Temple Terrace — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Temple Terrace average
How we know this about Temple Terrace
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 Temple Terrace’s own record; 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 Temple Terrace
When does frost risk typically end in Temple Terrace?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Temple Terrace typically lands around Jan 21, 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 11.
When is the first frost in Temple Terrace?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Temple Terrace typically arrives around Dec 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Dec 4, so the watching starts about Nov 18 — about 331 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Temple Terrace?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Temple Terrace sees about 331 frost-free days — roughly Jan 21 through Dec 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 11 to Dec 4, about 296 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Temple Terrace?
The federal record around Temple Terrace runs heavier than most — 3,470 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,795), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Temple Terrace?
From about Nov 18 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 18 (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 18. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Temple Terrace's scale — its 9b band and its 331-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Temple Terrace'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 Temple Terrace’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Temple Terrace's own scale — its own ~331-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,838 acres it covers and 3,470 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Temple Terrace's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Temple Terrace's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Jan 21 and Dec 18 and the ~331-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,470 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Temple Terrace, the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Temple Terrace's boundary and the 4,838 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~331-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Temple Terrace's own centroid, the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Temple Terrace's 4,838 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hillsborough County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hillsborough 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 Hillsborough County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Temple Terrace's 4,838 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Temple Terrace you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,838 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Temple Terrace-wide figureread your own land →
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