Rolling Hills, 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 Rolling Hills, 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 Rolling Hills 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 Rolling Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Rolling Hills — the short answer
Rolling Hills, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 231 days between hard freezes, across 121 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- 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
- ~231
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 121 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 Rolling Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rolling Hills's 231-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Rolling Hills
Each reading below is measured for Rolling Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRolling Hills runs about 231 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
MeasuredRolling Hills 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 Rolling Hills is in
Rolling Hills sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Rolling Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Jefferson County.
What Grows in Rolling Hills
Every plant below cleared Rolling Hills's own zone 7a and its 231-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Rolling Hills?
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 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (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 Rolling Hills
Survey cells within 31 miles of Rolling Hills checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 47 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Rolling Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Rolling Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Former Kroger Fuel L-272Underground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- Springdale AutomotiveUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Thorntons Inc #162Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Goose Creek PropertiesUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Former K Mart 7138Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- Thornton Oil Corp No 100Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- KROGER #764-24Brownfields · 2000 ft
- Records Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Bellsouth Telecommunications Lou CO Westport Rd 51178Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Kroger Fuel L-764Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Bee Line Food MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- John Shields ChevronUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rolling Hills'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 Rolling Hills.
Total Sites
1,537
within ~10 miles of Rolling Hills
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
10 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Rolling Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Rolling Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rolling Hills, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Rolling Hills — Underground Storage Tanks (1,105 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (94 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Rolling Hills
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 Rolling Hills average
Your land is one point inside Rolling Hills
Everything above resolves to Rolling Hills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 121 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 Rolling Hills Average
Rolling Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Rolling Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Rolling Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Rolling Hills's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rolling Hills's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Rolling Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rolling Hills, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rolling Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rolling Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rolling Hills average
How we know this about Rolling Hills
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 Rolling Hills’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 Rolling Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Rolling Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rolling Hills typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Rolling Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Rolling Hills 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 231 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Rolling Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rolling Hills sees about 231 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 28, about 196 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rolling Hills?
The federal record around Rolling Hills is a meaningful one — 1,537 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,105), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Rolling Hills?
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 Rolling Hills's scale — its 7a band and its 231-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rolling Hills'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 Rolling Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Rolling Hills's own scale — its own ~231-day season between 28°F freezes, the 121 acres it covers and 1,537 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rolling Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rolling Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 11 and the ~231-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,537 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Rolling Hills, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Rolling Hills's boundary and the 121 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~231-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Rolling Hills's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Rolling Hills 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 Rolling Hills's 121 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Jefferson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Jefferson 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 Jefferson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Rolling Hills's 121 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Rolling Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 121 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Rolling Hills-wide figureread your own land →
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