Dallas, Georgia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Dallas, 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 Dallas 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 Dallas — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Dallas — the short answer
Dallas, Georgia: USDA zone 8a, about 244 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~244
- 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 8a is Dallas's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dallas's 244-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dallas
Each reading below is measured for Dallas itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDallas runs about 244 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
MeasuredDallas 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 Dallas is in
Dallas sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Dallas's own centroid rather than borrowed from Paulding County.
What Grows in Dallas
Every plant below cleared Dallas's own zone 8a and its 244-day season. Each card opens that plant's Georgia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dallas?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — 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 Dallas
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dallas. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- READY MIX USA, LLCToxics Release Inventory · 450 ft
- DALLAS CONCRETE PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 1700 ft
- PK OIL INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- JAMES L WALRAVENUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- UNKNOWNUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- LUCKYSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- PAULDING COUNTY SHERIFF (FORMERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- BST/DALLAS CO/F0273Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- SEABOARD SYSTEM RRUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CSXUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- PAULDING COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEMUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- LITTLE BEAR FOOD STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dallas'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 Dallas.
Total Sites
240
within ~10 miles of Dallas
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dallas
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dallas
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dallas, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 164 sites within ~10 miles of Dallas. 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 Dallas
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 Dallas average
Your land is one point inside Dallas
Everything above resolves to Dallas 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 Dallas Average
Dallas Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Dallas
- ●One soil character for all of Dallas
- ●Frost dates read at Dallas's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dallas's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dallas
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dallas, Georgia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dallas averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dallas — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dallas average
How we know this about Dallas
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 Dallas’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 Dallas
When does frost risk typically end in Dallas?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dallas typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Dallas?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dallas typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 244 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dallas?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dallas sees about 244 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 2, about 209 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dallas?
The federal record around Dallas is a meaningful one — 240 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (164), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory record under a tenth of a mile 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 Dallas?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dallas's scale — its 8a band and its 244-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dallas'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 Dallas’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Dallas's own scale — its own ~244-day season between 28°F freezes, the 5,270 acres it covers and 240 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dallas's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dallas's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 16 and the ~244-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 240 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dallas, the closest Toxics Release Inventory record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dallas's boundary and the 5,270 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~244-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dallas's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Dallas's 5,270 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Paulding County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Paulding 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 Paulding County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dallas's 5,270 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dallas you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,270 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record under a tenth of a mile 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 Dallas-wide figureread your own land →
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