Greater New Orleans spans USDA hardiness zone 9b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
What separates Greater New Orleans from the wider Gulf-coast rim isn't its climate — the near-frost-free 9b band (334-338 frost-free days across all five parishes) is shared with the rest of the coast. It's the ground: much of the metro sits at or below sea level with a high water table, so raised beds and drainage-first design are the default across Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, St. Charles, and St. John the Baptist — not the open-field approach a generic rim page assumes. That same long, mild window is what carries satsumas and year-round greens through winter here. Reliable performers under these conditions include okra, satsuma orange, live oak, and pecan; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Greater New Orleans spans Louisiana.
Your yard isn't all of Greater New Orleans.
Greater New Orleans spans USDA zones 9b, 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 Greater New Orleans — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Greater New Orleans — the short answer
Greater New Orleans: USDA zones 9b, 334–338 frost-free days, in Louisiana.
- USDA zones
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023, aggregated over the footprint
- Frost-free season
- 334–338 days
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- Counties
- 5
- 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 Greater New Orleans
Plants matched to Greater New Orleans' USDA zones 9b, 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 Greater New Orleans
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in this region’s state, kept only where the published hardiness range meets Greater New Orleans’s USDA zones 9b — 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 Greater New Orleans
The USDA soil survey maps this ground county by county. These are those records weighted by land area across five member counties — this region’s own profile, not a state figure.
The ground is predominantly Histosols, at 43% of mapped acres, followed by Entisols (30%), Inceptisols (18%) and Vertisols (10%). The most extensive named soils are Barbary, Kenner, and Lafitte.
36% of those acres are very poorly drained, and another 10% poorly drained, 7% somewhat poorly drained. Topsoil pH runs 6.2–8.0 between the lowest and the highest county on record. 11% of the footprint is classed prime farmland.
Soil order
Histosols
Drainage
Very poorly drained
Topsoil pH
6.2–8.0
Hydric soils
89%
Soil changes across a driveway, so which of these your own ground sits on is a parcel question rather than a regional one. St. Bernard County holds the most wetland ground here, at 94% — soil types explained.
USDA NRCS SSURGO via Soil Data Access
What this means for growing in Greater New Orleans
The soil survey reads this ground county by county, and the readings above are those records summed across Greater New Orleans. Here is what they mean for a garden here — and the move an experienced grower makes about each one.
Drainage
From county records36% of the mapped acres across Greater New Orleans are very poorly drained — ground that sheds water slowly. That is area-weighted across all five of its mapped counties.
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
From county recordsTopsoil across Greater New Orleans runs pH 6.2–8.0 — near neutral in four of its five counties.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Greater New Orleans — and how to grow with it.
Across Greater New Orleans' 5 counties the federal record holds 6,908 documented sites, mostly Brownfields (4,020), Underground Storage Tanks (2,352) and Nitrate (304). The heaviest single county is Jefferson County, with 3,229.
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 Greater New Orleans to see which records sit where you actually grow.
Sources Checked
Summed across the 5 counties in Greater New Orleans
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Greater New Orleans, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 4,020 sites across the 5 counties in Greater New Orleans. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Your land is one point inside Greater New Orleans
Everything above resolves to Greater New Orleans as a whole — a footprint spanning USDA zones 9b. 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 Greater New Orleans Average
Greater New Orleans Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Greater New Orleans
- ●One soil character for all of Greater New Orleans
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Greater New Orleans' 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Greater New Orleans
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Greater New Orleans — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, contamination, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Greater New Orleans averages can't show:
We read public map data around Greater New Orleans — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not Greater New Orleans average
How we know this about Greater New Orleans
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 Greater New Orleans
What hardiness zone is Greater New Orleans?
Greater New Orleans spans USDA hardiness zones 9b, 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.
How long is the growing season in Greater New Orleans?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Greater New Orleans' counties mostly run 336 to 337 frost-free days, median 336 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991–2020, over 5 member counties). That 1-day spread is the honest read — no single season describes 5 counties, and each county guide below carries its own.
When does frost risk end in Greater New Orleans?
Across Greater New Orleans, the middle half of member counties see their last 28°F hard freeze between Jan 18 and Jan 18 (median Jan 18), and their first fall freeze between Dec 20 and Dec 21. Those are hard freezes, not the last light frost: tender transplants wait for about Feb 8, and elevation decides which end of a 0-day spread you garden in.
What grows well in Greater New Orleans?
Greater New Orleans' conditions suit plants such as Okra, Satsuma Orange, Live Oak, Pecan, Muscadine Grape. 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 Greater New Orleans defined?
Greater New Orleans is defined here as a curated cluster of 5 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 Greater New Orleans cover?
Greater New Orleans spans Louisiana. Each state's full growing guide is linked on this page.
What other growing regions cover the same states?
Mississippi Delta, Piney Woods, Gulf Coast, Acadiana, and Florida Parishes share at least one state with Greater New Orleans. 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 Greater New Orleans’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Greater New Orleans' own scale — the zone 9b band across its footprint, a median 336-day season across its 5 counties and 6,908 documented federal contamination records across its 5 counties, 3,229 of them in Jefferson County alone; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The USDA hardiness band 9b aggregated across all 5 counties in the footprintUSDA PHZM 2023
- The boundary itself — the 5 counties 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 28°F season across the footprint — the middle half of its 5 counties run 336 to 337 frost-free days, median 336NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- The federal contamination record over the whole footprint — 6,908 documented federal contamination records across its 5 counties, 3,229 of them in Jefferson County aloneEPA, USGS and USDA federal site records
- The soil order mix across the footprint — 43% Histosols, topsoil pH 6.2–8.0, area-weighted across its 5 mapped countiesUSDA NRCS SSURGO
Inherited from a wider read
- The candidate plant list — its state's curated sets, merged and filtered to zones 9bfrom Louisiana
What this page can’t tell you
- Which end of the 1-day range your ground sits at — 336 days at one extreme, 337 at the other, decided mostly by elevationfrost 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 Greater New Orleans
State growing guides
Counties in this region
Other growing regions across Louisiana
The flat, deep, dark alluvial bottomland of the lower Mississippi River — extraordinarily fertile cotton, soybean, rice, and sweet-potato ground.
The sandy, acidic pine-and-hardwood forest belt of East Texas and western Louisiana — the humid South Central Plains, where a long frost-free season of roughly nine months favors heat- and acid-tolerant Southern gardens.
The humid, near-frost-free coastal rim of the Gulf of Mexico — long seasons, sandy and alluvial soils, heat, and hurricanes shaping what thrives. (Representative coastal counties, not exhaustive.)
Acadiana's Cajun Prairie grows on flat, poorly-drained heavy clay and loam terraces — the rice, crawfish, and Creole-tomato country around Lafayette, Crowley, and Opelousas — not the marshy Gulf rim to the south or the sandy pine uplands to the north. All seven prairie parishes sit in USDA Zone 9a with a long ~305-313-day frost-free season, so the limiting factor here isn't cold, it's drainage: prairie ground that ponds after rain rewards raised beds and rewards heat-loving crops like okra, sugarcane, and Creole tomatoes. (Zone and frost-free figures per Growable Ground county climate data; officially the heart of Louisiana's 1971-designated 22-parish Acadiana.)
The Florida Parishes are Louisiana's upland exception — rolling pine hills of well-drained loessial and sandy soils east of the Mississippi and north of Lake Pontchartrain, a growing environment nothing like the flat coastal marsh to the south or the river alluvium to the west. This is the Ponchatoula–Hammond strawberry-and-truck-crop belt, where abundant pine-straw mulch and acidic upland ground built a berry culture dating to the 1800s; Tangipahoa Parish alone still grows roughly 80% of Louisiana's strawberries. All six parishes sit in USDA Zone 9a, but the inland uplands run a slightly shorter, more frost-prone season (~285–300 frost-free days) than the immediate coast — long enough for two truck-crop cycles, cool enough that winter-set strawberries thrive.