Clarkesville, Georgia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Clarkesville, 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 Clarkesville 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 Clarkesville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Clarkesville — the short answer
Clarkesville, Georgia: USDA zone 8a, about 232 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~232
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 2K 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 8a is Clarkesville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Clarkesville's 232-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Clarkesville
Each reading below is measured for Clarkesville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredClarkesville runs about 232 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredClarkesville sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Clarkesville is in
Clarkesville sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Clarkesville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Habersham County.
What Grows in Clarkesville
Every plant below cleared Clarkesville's own zone 8a and its 232-day season. Each card opens that plant's Georgia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Clarkesville?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Clarkesville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Clarkesville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GA FCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- HUBERT LOVELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- CLARKESVILE UNITED METHODIST CHUUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- CMIUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- GA POWER/NACOOCHEE PLT N GA HYDRUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- SUPREME GENETICS CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- CIRCLE K #2084Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- DUNCAN OIL CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- WALGREENS #19561Brownfields · 1800 ft
- MILLER PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- FIELDALE/CLARKESVILLE HATCHERY EUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- STANDARD TELEPHONE COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Clarkesville'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 Clarkesville.
Total Sites
230
within ~10 miles of Clarkesville
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Clarkesville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Clarkesville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Clarkesville, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Clarkesville — PFAS (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (176 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Clarkesville
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 Clarkesville average
Your land is one point inside Clarkesville
Everything above resolves to Clarkesville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Clarkesville Average
Clarkesville Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Clarkesville
- ●One soil character for all of Clarkesville
- ●Frost dates read at Clarkesville's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Clarkesville's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Clarkesville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Clarkesville, Georgia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Clarkesville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Clarkesville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Clarkesville average
How we know this about Clarkesville
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 Clarkesville’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 Clarkesville
When does frost risk typically end in Clarkesville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Clarkesville typically lands around Mar 23, 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 Apr 13.
When is the first frost in Clarkesville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Clarkesville typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 232 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Clarkesville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Clarkesville sees about 232 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Oct 27, about 197 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Clarkesville?
The federal record around Clarkesville is a meaningful one — 230 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (176), 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 Clarkesville?
From about Oct 11 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 Nov 10 (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 Nov 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Clarkesville's scale — its 8a band and its 232-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Clarkesville'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 Clarkesville’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Clarkesville's own scale — its own ~232-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,573 acres it covers and 230 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Clarkesville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Clarkesville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 23 and Nov 10 and the ~232-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 230 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Clarkesville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Clarkesville's boundary and the 1,573 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~232-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Clarkesville's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Clarkesville's 1,573 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Habersham County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Habersham County
- The growing challenges every Georgia grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Georgia
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Habersham County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Clarkesville's 1,573 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Clarkesville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,573 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 Clarkesville-wide figureread your own land →
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