The Green Mountains spans USDA hardiness zones 4b-5b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Vermont's forested spine of cold uplands and sheltered valleys — maple, apples, and cold-hardy market gardens on acidic mountain loams under a short northern season. Well-matched crops include garlic, kale, sugar maple, and apple, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
The Green Mountains spans Vermont.
Your yard isn't all of the Green Mountains.
The Green Mountains spans USDA zones 4b-5b, 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 The Green Mountains — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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The Green Mountains — the short answer
The Green Mountains: USDA zones 4b-5b, 148–179 frost-free days depending where in it you stand, in Vermont.
- USDA zones
- 4b-5b
- USDA PHZM 2023, aggregated over the footprint
- Shortest season here
- 148 days
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020 — South Lincoln
- Counties
- 3
- 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. The season figure is this region's own record, measured across its 19 member towns, not a state or national average.
Hardiness Zone Range
The Green Mountains is not one growing season
One answer for the Green Mountains averages 19 towns whose growing seasons are 31 days apart — from 148 frost-free days in South Lincoln to 179 in North Pownal. That is the same region, measured the same way, in the same years. Which end of it your land sits nearer decides what finishes before the first hard freeze.
The middle half of 19 towns runs 157–171 days, with a median of 163 days — a 31-day span end to end.
Measured across 19 member towns, each carrying its own 28°F normal. NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020. A member with no own record is absent from the range rather than counted as zero — nothing here is interpolated to the region. Your own site sits somewhere inside this range; a parcel report resolves where.
Where the line runs inside the Green Mountains
The middle half of the Green Mountains runs 157–171 frost-free days, and 10 of its 19 towns sit outside that — 5 on the short side, 5 on the long. A regional planting date describes the middle well and the ends poorly, which is worth knowing before you follow one.
Under 157 frost-free days
5 towns
- South Lincoln · 148 days
- Chimney Hill · 153 days
- Stratton Mountain · 154 days
3 of 5 shown
The end of the region that sets the planting calendar — start seed indoors here and the season stretches to meet the crop.
157–171 frost-free days
9 towns
0 of 9 shown
The middle half of the region, and the part a single regional season describes well.
Over 171 frost-free days
5 towns
- North Pownal · 179 days
- North Bennington · 179 days
- Pownal · 176 days
3 of 5 shown
Long enough for a second succession of a quick crop after the first comes out.
Each town is placed by its OWN 28°F frost-free normal (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020), the same figure its own guide page publishes. Elevation, slope and cold-air drainage move a site within its town as well — which is the part only your address resolves.
What Grows in the Green Mountains
Plants matched to the Green Mountains' USDA zones 4b-5b, 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 Green Mountains
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in this region’s state, kept only where the published hardiness range meets the Green Mountains’s USDA zones 4b-5b — 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 Green Mountains
The USDA soil survey maps this ground county by county. These are those records weighted by land area across three member counties — this region’s own profile, not a state figure.
The ground is predominantly Spodosols, at 59% of mapped acres, followed by Inceptisols (24%), Alfisols (13%) and Entisols (3%). Five 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 Vergennes, Houghtonville, and Berkshire.
54% of those acres are well drained, and another 21% moderately well drained, 7% poorly drained. Topsoil pH runs 4.6–5.9 between the lowest and the highest county on record. 4% of the footprint is classed prime farmland.
Soil order
Spodosols
Drainage
Well drained
Topsoil pH
4.6–5.9
Hydric soils
10%
Soil changes across a driveway, so which of these your own ground sits on is a parcel question rather than a regional one. Addison County holds the most wetland ground here, at 21% — soil types explained.
USDA NRCS SSURGO via Soil Data Access
What this means for growing in the Green Mountains
The soil survey reads this ground county by county, and the readings above are those records summed across the Green Mountains. Here is what they mean for a garden here — and the move an experienced grower makes about each one.
Drainage
From county records54% of the mapped acres across the Green Mountains are well drained — ground that drains quickly. That is area-weighted across all three of its mapped counties.
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 Green Mountains runs pH 4.6–5.9 — acidic in all three of them.
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
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across the Green Mountains — and how to grow with it.
Across the Green Mountains' 3 counties the federal record holds 1,361 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks (748), Brownfields (520) and Toxics Release Inventory (32). The heaviest single county is Windham County, with 583.
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 Green Mountains to see which records sit where you actually grow.
Sources Checked
Summed across the 3 counties in the Green Mountains
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around the Green Mountains, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 18 sites across the 3 counties in the Green Mountains. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Your land is one point inside the Green Mountains
Everything above resolves to the Green Mountains as a whole — a footprint whose own towns record seasons 31 days apart, and hardiness across zones 4b-5b. Your parcel sits at one point in that range, not in the middle of it. 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 Green Mountains Average
Green Mountains Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b-5b, averaged across Green Mountains
- ●One soil character for all of Green Mountains
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Green Mountains' 4b-5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in the Green Mountains
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in the Green Mountains — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, contamination, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Green Mountains averages can't show:
We read public map data around The Green Mountains — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Green Mountains average
How we know this about the Green Mountains
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 Green Mountains
What hardiness zone is the Green Mountains?
The Green Mountains spans USDA hardiness zones 4b-5b, 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 the Green Mountains?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, the Green Mountains' towns mostly run 157 to 171 frost-free days, median 163 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991–2020, over 19 member towns). That 14-day spread is the honest read — no single season describes 19 towns, and each town guide below carries its own.
When does frost risk end in the Green Mountains?
Across the Green Mountains, the middle half of member towns see their last 28°F hard freeze between Apr 29 and May 6 (median May 4), and their first fall freeze between Oct 10 and Oct 16. Those are hard freezes, not the last light frost: tender transplants wait for about May 25, and elevation decides which end of a 7-day spread you garden in.
What grows well in the Green Mountains?
The Green Mountains' conditions suit plants such as Garlic, Kale, Sugar Maple, Apple, Blueberry. 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 Green Mountains defined?
The Green Mountains is defined here as a curated cluster of 3 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 Green Mountains cover?
The Green Mountains spans Vermont. Each state's full growing guide is linked on this page.
What other growing regions cover the same states?
Champlain Valley, The Northeast Kingdom, The Upper Valley, Southern Vermont, and Mad River Valley share at least one state with the Green Mountains. 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 Green Mountains’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at the Green Mountains' own scale — the zone 4b-5b band across its footprint, a median 163-day season across its 19 counties and 1,361 documented federal contamination records across its 3 counties, 583 of them in Windham County alone; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The USDA hardiness band 4b-5b aggregated across all 3 counties in the footprintUSDA PHZM 2023
- The boundary itself — the 3 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 19 counties run 157 to 171 frost-free days, median 163NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- The federal contamination record over the whole footprint — 1,361 documented federal contamination records across its 3 counties, 583 of them in Windham County aloneEPA, USGS and USDA federal site records
- The soil order mix across the footprint — 59% Spodosols, topsoil pH 4.6–5.9, area-weighted across its 3 mapped countiesUSDA NRCS SSURGO
Inherited from a wider read
- The candidate plant list — its state's curated sets, merged and filtered to zones 4b-5bfrom Vermont
What this page can’t tell you
- Which end of the 14-day range your ground sits at — 157 days at one extreme, 171 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 the Green Mountains
State growing guides
Counties in this region
Other growing regions across Vermont
The lake-tempered lowland on both shores of Lake Champlain — clay and silt plains that make the warmest, driest, and most productive farm ground in Vermont, with apple and cold-climate wine country on the New York shore.
Vermont's Northeast Kingdom — Caledonia, Essex, and Orleans counties — sits entirely in USDA hardiness zone 4b, giving its three counties a short, uniformly cold frost-free season of roughly 146 to 156 days.
The Connecticut River's bi-state trench from Windsor to Hanover — 5a-5b valley-floor ground on both banks, warmer than the hills that rise from it, and a single growing community that has always ignored the state line.
The warmest ground in Vermont: Windham and Windsor are the state's only USDA zone 5b counties, running roughly two weeks longer at the shoulders (~159 frost-free days) than the 4b Northeast Kingdom behind them. The lower Connecticut and West River valleys around Brattleboro make this southern-Vermont market-garden and hillside-orchard country — the warm counterpoint the statewide 4b-5b Vermont page can't foreground.
A high Vermont valley cradled between the Green Mountain spine and the Northfield range — cold-air-pooling farm floors growing hay, brassicas, and hardy orchards under a short mountain season.