The Grand Valley (Palisade) spans USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
The Grand Valley around Palisade is a Colorado River bench entirely within Mesa County — the terroir of the federally recognized Grand Valley AVA (27 CFR §9.24) — where a USDA zone 7a climate and roughly 209 frost-free days ripen the wine grapes and orchard fruit the valley is known for. Reliable performers under these conditions include tomato, peach, colorado blue spruce, and apple; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
The Grand Valley (Palisade) spans Colorado.
Your yard isn't all of the Grand Valley (Palisade).
The Grand Valley (Palisade) spans USDA zones 7a, but your parcel sits in exactly one — and slope, tree cover, and low spots nudge it further. 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 Grand Valley (Palisade) — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
The Grand Valley (Palisade) — the short answer
The Grand Valley (Palisade): USDA zones 7a, 209 frost-free days, in Colorado.
- USDA zones
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023, aggregated over the footprint
- Frost-free season
- 209 days
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991–2020
- Counties
- 1
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Region type
- County cluster
- Growable Ground growing-region registry
Region boundary: Growable Ground growing-region registry — curated county clusters, EPA Level III ecoregions, and town clusters drawn finer than any county. Where a region publishes no measured season, no season figure is shown.
Hardiness Zone Range
What Grows in the Grand Valley (Palisade)
Plants matched to the Grand Valley (Palisade)'s USDA zones 7a, ordered by how much hardiness margin each has across the region — the ones with room to spare at both ends of this band lead. Each links to its full growing profile.
Native Plants of the Grand Valley (Palisade)
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in this region’s state, kept only where the published hardiness range meets the Grand Valley (Palisade)’s USDA zones 7a — closest range match first. Presence is recorded by state, so a plant can be documented across the state and still be scarce in your corner of the region.
The ground across the Grand Valley (Palisade)
The USDA soil survey maps this ground county by county. These are those records weighted by land area across one member county — this region’s own profile, not a state figure.
The ground is predominantly Mollisols, at 35% of mapped acres, followed by Entisols (31%), Aridisols (27%) and Alfisols (4%). Six soil orders appear somewhere inside the footprint, which is the honest reason a regional soil answer only goes so far. The most extensive named soils are Killpack, Persayo, and Jerry.
82% of those acres are well drained, and another 2% somewhat excessively drained, 1% moderately well drained. Topsoil pH runs 7.0–8.2 in that county’s own record.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Topsoil pH
7.0–8.2
Hydric soils
0%
Soil changes across a driveway, so which of these your own ground sits on is a parcel question rather than a regional one. soil types explained.
USDA NRCS SSURGO via Soil Data Access
What this means for growing in the Grand Valley (Palisade)
The soil survey reads this ground county by county, and the readings above are those records summed across the Grand Valley (Palisade). Here is what they mean for a garden here — and the move an experienced grower makes about each one.
Drainage
From county records82% of the mapped acres across the Grand Valley (Palisade) are well drained — ground that drains quickly. That is area-weighted across its one mapped county.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
From county recordsTopsoil across the Grand Valley (Palisade) runs pH 7.0–8.2 — alkaline in the one record covering it.
Many vegetables cope, but acid-lovers like blueberries struggle, and iron and manganese lock up above about pH 7.5 — leaves yellow between the veins even in rich soil.
Elemental sulfur and generous organic matter lower pH slowly for the beds that need it; test first so you add only what the soil actually calls for.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across the Grand Valley (Palisade) — and how to grow with it.
Across the Grand Valley (Palisade)'s 1 county the federal record holds 730 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks (380), Brownfields (223) and Nitrate (70). The heaviest single county is Mesa County, with 730.
That is a regional count, not a reading of any one lot — proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis. Open the map outlined to the Grand Valley (Palisade) to see which records sit where you actually grow.
Sources Checked
Summed across the county in the Grand Valley (Palisade)
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Your land is one point inside the Grand Valley (Palisade)
Everything above resolves to the Grand Valley (Palisade) as a whole — a footprint spanning USDA zones 7a. Your parcel sits in exactly one of them. 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 region 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 regional average.
Your Lot vs the Grand Valley (Palisade) Average
Grand Valley (Palisade) Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Grand Valley (Palisade)
- ●One soil character for all of Grand Valley (Palisade)
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Grand Valley (Palisade)'s 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in the Grand Valley (Palisade)
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in the Grand Valley (Palisade) — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, contamination, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Grand Valley (Palisade) averages can't show:
We read public map data around The Grand Valley (Palisade) — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Grand Valley (Palisade) average
How we know this about the Grand Valley (Palisade)
The boundary: a cluster of neighboring counties. Growing regions have no official boundary, so this footprint is our published one, and every figure on this page was measured over the counties inside it rather than borrowed from the state around it.
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, aggregated across the footprint; the growing season from NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS 1991–2020 28°F normals, read at each member’s own record; boundaries from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination record from the federal sources named in that beat above; the soil from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, read at each member county’s own record and weighted to this footprint by land area. Where a member carries no record of its own, it is absent from the figure rather than filled in.
Common questions about the Grand Valley (Palisade)
What hardiness zone is the Grand Valley (Palisade)?
The Grand Valley (Palisade) spans USDA hardiness zones 7a, aggregated from the USDA Agricultural Research Service Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 across the region's counties. Zones reflect average annual extreme minimum temperatures from 1991–2020 data.
What grows well in the Grand Valley (Palisade)?
The Grand Valley (Palisade)'s conditions suit plants such as Tomato, Peach, Colorado Blue Spruce, Apple, Lavender, Raspberry. What actually thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage — we score each plant against the real conditions at your address.
How is the Grand Valley (Palisade) defined?
The Grand Valley (Palisade) is defined here as a curated cluster of 1 neighboring counties that share a growing character. Growing regions have no official boundary, so this footprint is our published one — every county in it is named on this page.
Which states does the Grand Valley (Palisade) cover?
The Grand Valley (Palisade) spans Colorado. Each state's full growing guide is linked on this page.
What other growing regions cover the same states?
High Plains, Colorado High Country (Central Rockies), Front Range, San Luis Valley, Arkansas River Valley (Rocky Ford–Pueblo Corridor), and Four Corners / Southwest Colorado share at least one state with the Grand Valley (Palisade). Growing regions overlap and interlock — a single address can sit inside more than one, which is why the precise read is always the parcel, not the region.
What this page reads at the Grand Valley (Palisade)’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at the Grand Valley (Palisade)'s own scale — the zone 7a band across its footprint and 730 documented federal contamination records across its one county, 730 of them in Mesa County alone; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The USDA hardiness band 7a aggregated across the footprint's one countyUSDA PHZM 2023
- The boundary itself — the 1 county this region is curated fromGrowable Ground subregion registry
- The growing character that makes this region distinct from the states it crossesGrowable Ground subregion registry
- The federal contamination record over the whole footprint — 730 documented federal contamination records across its one county, 730 of them in Mesa County aloneEPA, USGS and USDA federal site records
- The soil order mix across the footprint — 35% Mollisols, topsoil pH 7.0–8.2, area-weighted across its one mapped countyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
Inherited from a wider read
- The candidate plant list — its state's curated sets, merged and filtered to zones 7afrom Colorado
What this page can’t tell you
- Frost dates — they swing too far across a footprint this size to quote as one regional numberfrost dates explained →
- Which of those soils your own ground sits on — the survey maps them county-wide, and they change across a drivewaysoil types explained →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on one specific lotwhy one lot differs from the next →
Explore the Grand Valley (Palisade)
State growing guides
Counties in this region
Other growing regions across Colorado
A semi-arid shortgrass tableland of deep soils and big sky, where wind, low rainfall, and irrigation shape dryland wheat, sorghum, and resilient gardens.
Colorado's highest gardens sit at 7,500–10,000+ feet, where frost can land in any month and the honest growing window runs 85–141 days across the region's counties — a span a single county figure hides at both ends. Because county centroids average the alpine slopes upward, the committed town data runs colder than the county page: Crested Butte gardens at zone 3b, Gunnison at 4a, Leadville sees roughly 84 frost-free days. This is the short-season opposite pole of the San Luis high-desert basin, and a completely different regime from the Front Range (169 frost-free days) or the Grand Valley (209) — season extension, cold-hardy varieties, and month-round frost vigilance drive every planting decision here.
Colorado's high, dry urban corridor at the foot of the Rockies — intense sun, alkaline soils, and a short season that rewards cold-hardy, drought-wise gardening.
The San Luis Valley is Colorado's high, cold intermountain basin — short frost-free seasons and hard winters — yet Rio Grande irrigation makes it one of the state's most important farming areas, famous for potatoes and barley.
Colorado's irrigated warm-season pocket. The lower Arkansas River bottomland east of the mountains runs a 178-to-191-frost-free-day season in zones 5b-6a — long and warm enough that Rocky Ford built a cantaloupe-and-watermelon reputation and Pueblo its green chile. That specialty-crop identity is nothing like the dryland shortgrass wheat and sorghum of the surrounding High Plains; what sets a parcel apart here is water. The ditch-irrigated valley floor grows heat-loving melons and chiles the unwatered tableland just above it cannot.
Southwest Colorado's Four Corners country grows on high-desert mesas at roughly 6,000-7,000 ft, where zone 6a-6b winters meet a warm-day/cool-night rhythm and a late-summer monsoon — a climate distinct from both the lower, warmer valleys of the northern Western Slope and the frost-pocket high country above it. The 146-168 frost-free days around Durango, Cortez, Mancos, and Pagosa Springs favor short-to-mid-season crops, and the Cortez-Dove Creek belt beside Mesa Verde is legendary dryland pinto-bean country (Dove Creek bills itself the "Pinto Bean Capital of the World").