Marietta, Georgia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Marietta, 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 Marietta 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 Marietta — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Marietta — the short answer
Marietta, Georgia: USDA zone 8a, about 256 days between hard freezes, across 15K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 13
- Cobb County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 24
- Cobb County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~256
- Cobb County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- City area
- 15K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Cobb County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 8a is Marietta's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Marietta's 256-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Marietta
Each reading below is measured for Marietta itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsMarietta runs about 256 days between hard freezes (read from Cobb County, the closest normal to Marietta) — 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
MeasuredMarietta 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 Marietta is in
Marietta sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Marietta's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cobb County.
What Grows in Marietta
Every plant below cleared Marietta's own zone 8a and its 256-day season. Each card opens that plant's Georgia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Marietta?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
What's on the federal record near Marietta
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Marietta. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- KENNESAW NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD PKUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- MARIETTA POLICE FACILITIESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Y-ONE GROCERY & GAS STATION/FORMUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- MAINT & WAREHOUSE FUELING STATIOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- CITY OF MARIETTA PUBLIC SAFETY SUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- PAINTERS TEXACO/U-HAUL TRUCK & TUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MARIETTA NATIONAL CEMETERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- HARMON GLASS PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- COBB COUNTY SHERIFFS BUILDINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- BOWLES OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- GETZ EXTERMINATORS OF GA INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- NU-WAY RENTAL SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Marietta'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 Marietta.
Total Sites
1,608
within ~10 miles of Marietta
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
18 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Marietta
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Marietta
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Marietta, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 1,082 sites within ~10 miles of Marietta. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 Marietta
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 Marietta average
Your land is one point inside Marietta
Everything above resolves to Marietta as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 15K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Cobb County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this city’s own centroid. 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 Marietta Average
Marietta Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Marietta
- ●One soil character for all of Marietta
- ●Frost dates read at Marietta's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Marietta's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Marietta
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Marietta, Georgia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Marietta averages can't show:
We read public map data around Marietta — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Marietta average
How we know this about Marietta
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 Cobb County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 Marietta
When does frost risk typically end in Marietta?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Marietta typically lands around Mar 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 Apr 3.
When is the first frost in Marietta?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Marietta typically arrives around Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 10, so the watching starts about Oct 25 — about 256 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Marietta?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Marietta sees about 256 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 10, about 221 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Marietta?
The federal record around Marietta is a meaningful one — 1,608 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,082), 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 Marietta?
From about Oct 25 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 24 (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 24. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Marietta's scale — its 8a band and its 256-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Marietta'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 Marietta’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Marietta's own scale — the 15,225 acres it covers and 1,608 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Marietta's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 1,608 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Marietta, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Marietta's boundary and the 15,225 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~256-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Marietta's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Marietta has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Cobb County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Marietta's 15,225 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cobb County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cobb 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 Cobb County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Marietta's 15,225 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Marietta you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 15,225 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 Marietta-wide figureread your own land →
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