Hawaii spans USDA hardiness zones 8b-13a, with a growing season of about 365 frost-free days — a calendar that barely closes, trading frost worries for heat management and near-continuous harvests.
Behind the zone label sits the real climate engine: 10-400 inches of annual rainfall. Dig almost anywhere and you'll meet volcanic, laterite, coral sand, and peat; how quickly they shed water is the first thing to learn about them. Hawaii is not one growing region but several — from Hamakua Coast & Hilo, Kona & Hawaii Island, and Maui Upcountry — each with its own zone band and frost timing. Expect taro, mango, macadamia, and coffee to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded inUSDA PHZM•NOAA Climate Normals•USDA NRCS SSURGO•USDA hardiness sub-region map•EPA FRS•USDA PLANTS•Growable Ground suitability scoring
Hawaii spans zones 8b-13a, but your yard 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 Hawaii — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Distinct growing regions within Hawaii — each has its own zones, soils, and signature crops.
Hawaii: USDA zones 8b-13a, no 28°F killing freeze on record, 5 counties.
No 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record — the growing season is year-round. Measured up to about 7,000 ft. Hawaii’s summit country — Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa and the Haleakalā cone — does freeze, and no station up there carries a long enough daily record to put a date on it.
Zone 8b-13a is Hawaii's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hawaii's no killing freeze on record, see what your own ground reads.
The soil types that dominate Hawaii — how each drains decides more about crop success than almost anything else. Tap any soil to learn what it is and how to work with it. Each photo is a representative profile of that soil type; the named series is where it was documented, which is often another state.
Drainage
Excellent and unusual: ash soils drain freely yet hold remarkable amounts of plant-available water in their porous structure — the best of both habits.
What thrives
Volcanic regions grow celebrated crops the world over: orchards, berries, vegetables, coffee, and wine grapes all prosper on ash-derived soils.
Drainage
Generally good — the oxide-rich structure stays open — though hardened layers shed water where the surface has baked.
What thrives
Tropical perennials adapted to leached ground: mango, banana, pineapple, cassava, and taro are grown on lateritic soils throughout the tropics.
Sand made not from rock but from ground-up coral and shell — calcium carbonate through and through, which keeps the pH firmly alkaline.
Drainage
Extremely fast, like all sands, with the added quirk that the lime chemistry never washes out.
What thrives
Tropical plants adapted to limestone coasts: coconut palm, sea grape, papaya, and many bougainvilleas and natives of coral shorelines. Vegetables grow well in imported-soil or compost-filled beds.
Drainage
Saturated by default — peat forms precisely because water excludes the oxygen decomposition needs. Drained peat holds moisture beautifully but can stay cold late into spring.
What thrives
Acid-lovers are at home: blueberries and cranberries are the classic peatland crops, with rhododendrons, azaleas, and bog natives alongside.
Soil data: USDA NRCS SSURGO · Soil types explained
Plants well-suited to Hawaii's climate, soils, and growing season — each links to its full growing profile.
The plants Hawaii put its name on — cultural emblems, not growing recommendations.
Hawaiian hibiscus (maʻo hau hele)
Hibiscus brackenridgei
Designated 1988.
Candlenut tree
Aleurites moluccanus
Designated 1959.
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in Hawaii — a real per-state range, not just a zone match. Ordered by how closely each plant’s published hardiness range matches Hawaii’s zones 8b-13a, so this is a shortlist by climate fit, not a ranking of which plants matter most here. Presence is statewide, so a plant may still be uncommon in your specific county; your state’s Cooperative Extension or a native-plant society is the local authority.
US-native plants whose hardiness range overlaps Hawaii’s USDA zones 8b-13a but which USDA PLANTS doesn’t map to a single state range here. Zone overlap is a starting filter, not a range map.
What an experienced grower plans around here — each one has a move.
Extreme rainfall variation — desert on one side, rainforest on the other
Your side of the island decides everything — check your exact spot's rainfall before choosing crops.
Volcanic soil is nutrient-poor in young flows
A soil test shows what young lava ground is missing — compost and targeted amendments close the gap fast.
Invasive species pressure is severe
Source clean plant material and learn the current watch list — your extension office is the authority on what to keep out.
For cultivar selection, pest pressure, and planting-time guidance specific to Hawaii, the UH Mānoa CTAHR Extension is the authoritative local source.
Safe to Grow Here?What the federal record shows across Hawaii — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Hawaii — 4,542 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 86 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Hawaii carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Severity Distribution
across Hawaii
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hawaii, two things run higher than the national average across Hawaii — Superfund (86 sites) and PFAS (40 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Everything above resolves to Hawaii as a whole — a footprint spanning USDA zones 8b-13a. 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 state 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 statewide average.
State averages sketch the shape. Your soil, sun exposure, drainage, and microclimate decide what actually takes. Pull a site-specific report for your exact parcel.
Enter your address. We read your soil, sun, drainage, and frost dates, then score 1,086 plants against the real conditions on your land.
Three things about your lot that Hawaii averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hawaii — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hawaii average
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read per county and aggregated to the state band; the growing season from NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS 1991–2020 28°F normals, read at each county’s own record; rainfall from NOAA Climate Normals; soils from USDA NRCS SSURGO; boundaries from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination record from the federal sources named in that beat above. Where a county carries no record of its own, it is absent from the figure rather than filled in.
Hawaii spans USDA hardiness zones 8b-13a — which is to say winter's coldest night runs from about 15°F to 65°F depending where in Hawaii you are, averaged over 1991–2020 (USDA PHZM 2023).
No — Hawaii has no 28°F killing freeze in the 30-year station record, so the growing season is year-round and there is no last-frost date to wait for. Planting is paced by rainfall, heat and daylength instead of by frost: start heat-lovers any month, and time cool-season crops (lettuce, brassicas, peas) for the cooler, wetter half of the year or for higher ground. Succession sowing every few weeks works all year, so the limit is what you can keep watered and harvested, not the calendar.
It doesn't — Hawaii records no 28°F killing freeze at all across the 1991–2020 station record, so there is no spring frost date to plant after. Cold still matters with elevation: the higher you garden, the cooler the nights, and a few tropical crops sulk below about 60°F even where they never freeze.
Year-round — the 1991–2020 station record for Hawaii contains no 28°F killing freeze, so there is no season to measure between freezes. What paces planting instead is heat, rainfall and daylength: the hottest, wettest stretch is the hard part for cool-season crops, not winter. Elevation is the one real exception — the higher you garden, the colder the nights get.
Hawaii's zones 8b-13a support a wide range — strong performers include Taro, Mango, Macadamia, Coffee, and Plumeria. What actually takes on any one site comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage, and we score each plant against the real conditions at your address.
Officially, Hawaii spans USDA zones 8b-13a (USDA PHZM 2023) — but a zone is a 30-year average of winter's coldest night across an area, and it can't see any one yard. A south-facing slope, a tree line, or a low frost pocket can shift a single site by half a zone either way, which is why neighboring gardeners often quote different numbers. We read the conditions at your exact address — soil, sun, slope, and frost — and score 1,086 plants against what's actually there.
The federal record across Hawaii runs heavier than most — 4,542 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,571) — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Start with three facts. Hawaii spans USDA zones 8b-13a, which sets what survives winter; the 30-year station record holds no 28°F killing freeze at all, so the growing season runs year-round; and 4,542 documented sites sit on the federal record here, so a soil test before food beds is the smart first step. From there, matching plants to your actual soil and sun is the fun part.
Everything above is measured at Hawaii's scale — its 8b-13a band and its no killing freeze on record. Your yard writes its own version of Hawaii's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
5 of the readings below were taken at Hawaii's own scale — the full zone 8b-13a span inside its borders, the 4 soil types that dominate its ground and 4,542 documented sites on its federal record; anything it cannot resolve at this scale is named below.
Measured here
What this page can’t tell you
Explore growing conditions by city or town in Hawaii.
