Pembroke, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Pembroke, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Pembroke lot. 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 Pembroke — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Pembroke — the short answer
Pembroke, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 234 days between hard freezes, across 711 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~234
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 711 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 7a is Pembroke's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pembroke's 234-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pembroke
Each reading below is measured for Pembroke itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPembroke runs about 234 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredPembroke sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Pembroke is in
Pembroke sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pembroke's own centroid rather than borrowed from Christian County.
What Grows in Pembroke
Every plant below cleared Pembroke's own zone 7a and its 234-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pembroke?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Pembroke
Survey cells within 31 miles of Pembroke checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 58 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pembroke
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pembroke. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- J10D0029Nitrate · 1000 ft
- Dollar General Store #11690Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Minit Mart 90Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- Minit Mart #529Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- Crop Production ServicesUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Rogers Body ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Pembroke Elementary SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- J10D0453Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- J10C0021Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- J10D0022Nitrate · 1.3 mi
- ASCEND ELEMENTS INC.Brownfields · 1.5 mi
- YAMAKIN CORPORATIONBrownfields · 1.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pembroke's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Pembroke.
Total Sites
315
within ~10 miles of Pembroke
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pembroke
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pembroke
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pembroke, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Pembroke — Toxics Release Inventory (36 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Pembroke
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pembroke average
Your land is one point inside Pembroke
Everything above resolves to Pembroke as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 711 acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. 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 city 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 local average.
Your Lot vs the Pembroke Average
Pembroke Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Pembroke
- ●One soil character for all of Pembroke
- ●Frost dates read at Pembroke's scale: Mar 22 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pembroke's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pembroke
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pembroke, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pembroke averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pembroke — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pembroke average
How we know this about Pembroke
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Pembroke’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Pembroke
When does frost risk typically end in Pembroke?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pembroke typically lands around Mar 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Apr 12.
When is the first frost in Pembroke?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pembroke typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 234 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pembroke?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pembroke sees about 234 frost-free days — roughly Mar 22 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 12 to Oct 28, about 199 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pembroke?
The federal record around Pembroke is a meaningful one — 315 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (192), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Pembroke?
From about Oct 12 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pembroke's scale — its 7a band and its 234-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pembroke's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Pembroke’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pembroke's own scale — its own ~234-day season between 28°F freezes, the 711 acres it covers and 315 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pembroke's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pembroke's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 22 and Nov 11 and the ~234-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 315 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pembroke, the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pembroke's boundary and the 711 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~234-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pembroke's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Pembroke checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Pembroke's 711 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Christian County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Christian County
- The growing challenges every Kentucky grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Kentucky
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Christian County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pembroke's 711 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pembroke you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 711 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Pembroke-wide figureread your own land →