Bryan County, in Georgia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Reliable performers under these conditions include artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Bryan County lies within the Sea Islands — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Bryan County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Bryan 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 Bryan County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bryan County — the short answer
Bryan County, Georgia: USDA zone 9a, about 298 days between hard freezes, across 280K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~298
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 280K 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 Bryan County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bryan County's 298-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Bryan County
Across a year, Bryan County accumulates about 6,204 growing degree days above 50°F, about 789 more than the middle Georgia county — ahead of 137 of Georgia’s 159 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 634 hours below 45°F, 502 fewer than the Georgia middle of 1,136. 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 Bryan County
Across Bryan County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Ellabelle, Stilson, and Pelham are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally very poorly drained with a loamy sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.3, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B/D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Very poorly drained
Prime farmland
1%
Hydric soils
54%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Bryan County
The USDA soil survey maps 31% of Bryan County as very poorly drained — but another 65% drains differently: 27% poorly drained, 16% somewhat poorly drained.
Ellabelle is the most extensive named soil at 21% of mapped acres, then Stilson (10%) and Pelham (7%).
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 Bryan County
Each reading below is measured for Bryan 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 Bryan County are very poorly drained, in hydrologic group B/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 Bryan County runs about pH 5.0–5.3, 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
Season length
MeasuredBryan County runs about 298 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
MeasuredBryan County sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Bryan County is in
Bryan 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 Bryan County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Bryan County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 298-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 Georgia profile.
Is it too late to plant in Bryan County?
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 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 8 — 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 Bryan County
- monarch butterfly7 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Bryan County
USGS estimates 1,089 lb of Glyphosate on Bryan County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (710 lb) and Malathion (556 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 Bryan County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Bryan County — 131 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 15 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Bryan County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Bryan County
Closest first, across Bryan County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GA-PACIFIC ELLABELL SAWMILLUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.4 mi
- LOVES TRAVEL STOP #338Underground Storage Tanks · 7.4 mi
- AKSHAR FOOD MART #2Underground Storage Tanks · 7.6 mi
- PARKERS #2Underground Storage Tanks · 7.6 mi
- CANE LIME & SUPPLY LLCToxics Release Inventory · 7.8 mi
- GA DOT 10559 RICHMOND HILL MAINTUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.9 mi
- ZIP-N-FOOD STORE #3Underground Storage Tanks · 7.9 mi
- KROGER #011-0688Brownfields · 8.1 mi
- KROGER GA 688Underground Storage Tanks · 8.1 mi
- THERON NEALUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.2 mi
- /DONALD BELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.2 mi
- DAWKINS ON-SITE LLC - KOMARToxics Release Inventory · 8.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bryan 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 Bryan County.
Total Sites
131
across Bryan County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
15 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Bryan County
Severity Distribution
across Bryan County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bryan County, two things run higher than the national average across Bryan County — PFAS (3 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (15 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Bryan 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 Bryan County average
Your land is one point inside Bryan County
Everything above resolves to Bryan County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 280K 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 Bryan County Average
Bryan County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Bryan County
- ●One soil character for all of Bryan County
- ●Frost dates read at Bryan County's scale: Feb 13 to Dec 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bryan County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Bryan County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bryan County, Georgia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bryan County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bryan County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bryan County average
How we know this about Bryan 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 Bryan County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Bryan County
When does frost risk typically end in Bryan County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bryan County typically lands around Feb 13, 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 Mar 6.
How long is the growing season in Bryan County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bryan County sees about 298 frost-free days — roughly Feb 13 through Dec 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 6 to Nov 24, about 263 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bryan County?
The federal record around Bryan County shows 131 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (86), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 7.4 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
Everything above is measured at Bryan County's scale — its 9a band and its 298-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bryan 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 Georgia's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Bryan County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Bryan County's own scale — its own ~298-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 131 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bryan County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bryan County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~298-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Bryan CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 131 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 7.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Bryan County's boundary and the 280,040 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~298-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Bryan County sitting wholly inside the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Bryan County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Bryan County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Georgia grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Georgia
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Bryan County — the ~298 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 Bryan County's 280,040 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 131 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 Bryan Countyread your own land →