Ware County, in Georgia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
The conditions favor artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Ware County lies within the Deep South Georgia / Wiregrass — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Ware County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Ware 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 Ware County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Ware County — the short answer
Ware County, Georgia: USDA zone 9a, about 295 days between hard freezes, across 576K acres.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~295
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 576K 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 Ware County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ware County's 295-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Ware County
Across a year, Ware County accumulates about 6,390 growing degree days above 50°F, about 975 more than the middle Georgia county — ahead of 150 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 595 hours below 45°F, 541 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 Ware County
Across Ware County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Pelham, Surrency, and Dasher are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a fine sand surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–4.7, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A/D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
1%
Hydric soils
87%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Ware County
The USDA soil survey maps 43% of Ware County as poorly drained — but another 56% drains differently: 42% very poorly drained, 9% somewhat poorly drained.
Pelham is the most extensive named soil at 23% of mapped acres, then Surrency (15%) and Dasher (15%).
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 Ware County
Each reading below is measured for Ware 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 Ware County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group A/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 Ware County runs about pH 4.6–4.7, 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
MeasuredWare County runs about 295 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
MeasuredWare 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 Ware County is in
Ware 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 Ware County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Ware County's own USDA zone 9a and its own 295-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 Ware 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 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 6 — 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 gets applied to farmland in Ware County
USGS estimates 9,314 lb of Glyphosate on Ware County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor-s (3,367 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (3,367 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 Ware County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Ware County — 265 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 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 Ware 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 Ware County
Closest first, across Ware County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GENERAL MANUFACTURED HOUSIM #4Toxics Release Inventory · 5.8 mi
- JOHN T THRIFTUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.1 mi
- JACK'S COUNTRY MALL 8Underground Storage Tanks · 7.3 mi
- SATILLA REGIONAL WATER & SEWER AUTH-EASTPFAS · 8.7 mi
- SATILLA REGIONAL WATER & SEWER AUTH.PFAS · 8.7 mi
- EMERSON PARK GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 9.3 mi
- FLASH FOODS #96Underground Storage Tanks · 9.5 mi
- GDOT FACILITY EDS00-0084-00(023) 422120 (PARCEL 86)Underground Storage Tanks · 9.6 mi
- MOORES COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 9.6 mi
- CSX RICE YARDBrownfields · 9.7 mi
- ALPHA CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 9.8 mi
- WARE COUNTY MAGNET SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 9.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ware 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 Ware County.
Total Sites
265
across Ware County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Ware County
Severity Distribution
across Ware County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Ware County, two things run higher than the national average across Ware County — PFAS (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (195 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 Ware 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 Ware County average
Your land is one point inside Ware County
Everything above resolves to Ware County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 576K 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 Ware County Average
Ware County Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Ware County
- ●One soil character for all of Ware County
- ●Frost dates read at Ware County's scale: Feb 14 to Dec 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ware County's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Ware County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ware County, Georgia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ware County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ware County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ware County average
How we know this about Ware 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 Ware County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Ware County
When does frost risk typically end in Ware County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ware County typically lands around Feb 14, 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 7.
How long is the growing season in Ware County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ware County sees about 295 frost-free days — roughly Feb 14 through Dec 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 7 to Nov 22, about 260 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Ware County?
The federal record around Ware County is a meaningful one — 265 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (195), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory record about 5.8 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 Ware County's scale — its 9a band and its 295-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ware 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 Ware County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Ware County's own scale — its own ~295-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 265 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ware County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ware County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~295-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Ware CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 265 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 5.8 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Ware County's boundary and the 575,590 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~295-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Ware County sitting wholly inside the Southern Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Ware 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 Ware County — the ~295 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 Ware County's 575,590 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 265 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 Ware Countyread your own land →