The Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia spans USDA hardiness zones 8a-8b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
The only USDA zone 8b band in Virginia. Atlantic and Chesapeake Bay maritime moderation plus dense urban heat give the waterfront cities of Hampton Roads the state's warmest winters and longest season — roughly 276 to 289 frost-free days on the water (Hampton runs 289), about 60 days longer than the inland coastal plain and over 100 days longer than the mountains. Growers here overwinter hardy greens and roots, and figs and other tender perennials that fail elsewhere in Virginia routinely survive. Inland edges of the metro — Chesapeake, Suffolk, Isle of Wight, Newport News — cool to 8a, so the frost-free window shortens as you move off the tidal shoreline. Expect tomato, grape, dogwood, and apple to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
The Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia spans Virginia.
Your yard isn't all of the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia.
The Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia spans USDA zones 8a-8b, 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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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The Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia — the short answer
The Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia: USDA zones 8a-8b, 247–289 frost-free days depending where in it you stand, in Virginia.
- USDA zones
- 8a-8b
- USDA PHZM 2023, aggregated over the footprint
- Shortest season here
- 247 days
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020 — Suffolk County
- Counties
- 10
- 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 10 member counties, not a state or national average.
Hardiness Zone Range
The Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia is not one growing season
One answer for the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia averages 10 counties whose growing seasons are 42 days apart — from 247 frost-free days in Suffolk County to 289 in Hampton County. 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 10 counties runs 258–283 days, with a median of 277 days — a 42-day span end to end.
Measured across 10 member counties, 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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
The middle half of the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia runs 258–283 frost-free days, and 5 of its 10 counties sit outside that — 3 on the short side, 2 on the long. A regional planting date describes the middle well and the ends poorly, which is worth knowing before you follow one.
Under 258 frost-free days
3 counties
- Suffolk County · 247 days
- Chesapeake County · 252 days
- Isle of Wight County · 254 days
The end of the region that sets the planting calendar — start seed indoors here and the season stretches to meet the crop.
258–283 frost-free days
5 counties
0 of 5 shown
The middle half of the region, and the part a single regional season describes well.
Over 283 frost-free days
2 counties
- Hampton County · 289 days
- Norfolk County · 287 days
Long enough for a second succession of a quick crop after the first comes out.
Each county 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 county as well — which is the part only your address resolves.
What Grows in the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
All 1 of the plants below that publish a season requirement clear even Suffolk County’s 247 frost-free days — so on season alone, this grid works at both ends of the region. The 42-day spread still decides how far past this list you can push, and how early you can start.
Plants matched to the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia's USDA zones 8a-8b, 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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in this region’s state, kept only where the published hardiness range meets the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia’s USDA zones 8a-8b — 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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
The USDA soil survey maps this ground county by county. These are those records weighted by land area across ten member counties — this region’s own profile, not a state figure.
The ground is predominantly Ultisols, at 68% of mapped acres, followed by Entisols (12%), Histosols (11%) and Alfisols (7%). 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 Tomotley, Slagle, and Acredale.
27% of those acres are poorly drained, and another 21% moderately well drained, 18% very poorly drained. Topsoil pH runs 4.0–6.8 between the lowest and the highest county on record. 15% of the footprint is classed prime farmland.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Topsoil pH
4.0–6.8
Hydric soils
53%
Soil changes across a driveway, so which of these your own ground sits on is a parcel question rather than a regional one. Chesapeake County holds the most wetland ground here, at 86% — soil types explained.
USDA NRCS SSURGO via Soil Data Access
What this means for growing in the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
The soil survey reads this ground county by county, and the readings above are those records summed across the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia. Here is what they mean for a garden here — and the move an experienced grower makes about each one.
Drainage
From county records27% of the mapped acres across the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia are poorly drained — ground that sheds water slowly. That is area-weighted across all ten 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 the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia runs pH 4.0–6.8 — acidic in all ten 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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia — and how to grow with it.
Across the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia's 10 counties the federal record holds 5,725 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks (3,420), Brownfields (1,863) and Nitrate (214). The heaviest single county is Virginia Beach County, with 1,185.
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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia to see which records sit where you actually grow.
Sources Checked
Summed across the 10 counties in the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
Everything above resolves to the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia as a whole — a footprint whose own counties record seasons 42 days apart, and hardiness across zones 8a-8b. 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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia Average
Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a-8b, averaged across Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
- ●One soil character for all of Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia's 8a-8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, contamination, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia averages can't show:
We read public map data around The Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia average
How we know this about the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
What hardiness zone is the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia?
The Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia spans USDA hardiness zones 8a-8b, 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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia's counties mostly run 258 to 283 frost-free days, median 277 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991–2020, over 10 member counties). That 25-day spread is the honest read — no single season describes 10 counties, and each county guide below carries its own.
When does frost risk end in the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia?
Across the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia, the middle half of member counties see their last 28°F hard freeze between Feb 28 and Mar 13 (median Mar 5), and their first fall freeze between Nov 27 and Dec 8. Those are hard freezes, not the last light frost: tender transplants wait for about Mar 26, and elevation decides which end of a 13-day spread you garden in.
What grows well in the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia?
The Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia's conditions suit plants such as Tomato, Grape, Dogwood, Apple, Peanut. 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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia defined?
The Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia is defined here as a curated cluster of 10 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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia cover?
The Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia spans Virginia. Each state's full growing guide is linked on this page.
What other growing regions cover the same states?
Appalachia, Piedmont, Tidewater & Chesapeake, Blue Ridge, Delmarva Peninsula, and Shenandoah Valley share at least one state with the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia. 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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia's own scale — the zone 8a-8b band across its footprint, a median 277-day season across its 10 counties and 5,725 documented federal contamination records across its 10 counties, 1,185 of them in Virginia Beach County alone; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The USDA hardiness band 8a-8b aggregated across all 10 counties in the footprintUSDA PHZM 2023
- The boundary itself — the 10 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 10 counties run 258 to 283 frost-free days, median 277NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- The federal contamination record over the whole footprint — 5,725 documented federal contamination records across its 10 counties, 1,185 of them in Virginia Beach County aloneEPA, USGS and USDA federal site records
- The soil order mix across the footprint — 68% Ultisols, topsoil pH 4.0–6.8, area-weighted across its 10 mapped countiesUSDA NRCS SSURGO
Inherited from a wider read
- The candidate plant list — its state's curated sets, merged and filtered to zones 8a-8bfrom Virginia
What this page can’t tell you
- Which end of the 25-day range your ground sits at — 258 days at one extreme, 283 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 Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia
State growing guides
Counties in this region
Other growing regions across Virginia
The vast eastern mountain region of steep hollows, thin acidic soils, and short upland seasons — apples, brambles, ramps, and forest crops on hard-won ground. (Union of the core Appalachian ecoregions.)
The rolling foothill belt between the Appalachians and the coastal plain, defined by heavy red clay soils that reward amendment and drainage. (Southern Piedmont; the Northern Piedmont is a separate ecoregion.)
The low, flat, tidal coastal plain around Chesapeake Bay — sandy soils, mild maritime winters, and a long season for vegetables and Southern staples.
The high, cool, forested spine of the southern Appalachians — layered ridges, acidic mountain loams, and a short upland season suited to apples and cold-hardy crops.
A flat coastal-plain peninsula of sandy, well-drained soils between the Chesapeake and the Atlantic — a major sweet-corn, soybean, and produce region.
A fertile limestone valley between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny fronts — prime Virginia apple, livestock, and orchard country.