The Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country spans USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Bounded by the TTB Lancaster Valley viticultural area (27 CFR §9.41) across Lancaster and Chester Counties, this southeastern-Pennsylvania region sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a with a frost-free growing season of roughly 213 to 224 days. Growers here do well with tomato, mountain laurel, apple, and grape — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
The Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country spans Pennsylvania.
Your yard isn't all of the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
The Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country spans USDA zones 7a, 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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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The Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country — the short answer
The Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country: USDA zones 7a, 213–224 frost-free days, in Pennsylvania.
- USDA zones
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023, aggregated over the footprint
- Frost-free season
- 213–224 days
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- Counties
- 2
- 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. Where a region publishes no measured season, no season figure is shown.
Hardiness Zone Range
What Grows in the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country
Plants matched to the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country's USDA zones 7a, 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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in this region’s state, kept only where the published hardiness range meets the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country’s USDA zones 7a — 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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country
The USDA soil survey maps this ground county by county. These are those records weighted by land area across two member counties — this region’s own profile, not a state figure.
The ground is predominantly Ultisols, at 49% of mapped acres, followed by Alfisols (30%), Inceptisols (21%) and Entisols (1%). The most extensive named soils are Glenelg, Manor, and Gladstone.
76% of those acres are well drained, and another 9% moderately well drained, 4% poorly drained. Topsoil pH runs 5.4–6.5 between the lowest and the highest county on record. 50% of the footprint is classed prime farmland.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Topsoil pH
5.4–6.5
Hydric soils
5%
Soil changes across a driveway, so which of these your own ground sits on is a parcel question rather than a regional one. Chester County holds the most wetland ground here, at 10% — soil types explained.
USDA NRCS SSURGO via Soil Data Access
What this means for growing in the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country
The soil survey reads this ground county by county, and the readings above are those records summed across the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Here is what they mean for a garden here — and the move an experienced grower makes about each one.
Drainage
From county records76% of the mapped acres across the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country are well drained — ground that drains quickly. That is area-weighted across all two 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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country runs pH 5.4–6.5 — acidic in all two 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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country — and how to grow with it.
Across the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country's 2 counties the federal record holds 7,906 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks (2,900), Nitrate (2,836) and Brownfields (1,506). The heaviest single county is Lancaster County, with 4,101.
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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country to see which records sit where you actually grow.
Sources Checked
Summed across the 2 counties in the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country, two things run higher than the national average across the 2 counties in the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country — CAFO (200 sites) and Nitrate (2,836 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Your land is one point inside the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country
Everything above resolves to the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country as a whole — a footprint spanning USDA zones 7a. 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 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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country Average
Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country
- ●One soil character for all of Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, contamination, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country averages can't show:
We read public map data around The Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country average
How we know this about the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country
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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country
What hardiness zone is the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country?
The Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country spans USDA hardiness zones 7a, 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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country's counties mostly run 216 to 221 frost-free days, median 219 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991–2020, over 2 member counties). That 5-day spread is the honest read — no single season describes 2 counties, and each county guide below carries its own.
When does frost risk end in the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country?
Across the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country, the middle half of member counties see their last 28°F hard freeze between Mar 31 and Apr 3 (median Apr 2), and their first fall freeze between Nov 5 and Nov 8. Those are hard freezes, not the last light frost: tender transplants wait for about Apr 23, and elevation decides which end of a 3-day spread you garden in.
What grows well in the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country?
The Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country's conditions suit plants such as Tomato, Mountain Laurel, Apple, Grape, Mushroom. 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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country defined?
The Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country is defined here as a curated cluster of 2 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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country cover?
The Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country spans Pennsylvania. Each state's full growing guide is linked on this page.
What other growing regions cover the same states?
Appalachia, Northern Tier (north-central Pennsylvania high plateau), The Poconos, Cumberland Valley, Brandywine Valley, and Greater Philadelphia share at least one state with the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country. 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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at the Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country's own scale — the zone 7a band across its footprint, a median 219-day season across its 2 counties and 7,906 documented federal contamination records across its 2 counties, 4,101 of them in Lancaster County alone; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The USDA hardiness band 7a aggregated across all 2 counties in the footprintUSDA PHZM 2023
- The boundary itself — the 2 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 2 counties run 216 to 221 frost-free days, median 219NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- The federal contamination record over the whole footprint — 7,906 documented federal contamination records across its 2 counties, 4,101 of them in Lancaster County aloneEPA, USGS and USDA federal site records
- The soil order mix across the footprint — 49% Ultisols, topsoil pH 5.4–6.5, area-weighted across its 2 mapped countiesUSDA NRCS SSURGO
Inherited from a wider read
- The candidate plant list — its state's curated sets, merged and filtered to zones 7afrom Pennsylvania
What this page can’t tell you
- Which end of the 5-day range your ground sits at — 216 days at one extreme, 221 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 Lancaster County / Pennsylvania Dutch Country
State growing guides
Counties in this region
Other growing regions across Pennsylvania
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.)
Pennsylvania's coldest, shortest-season ground: the glaciated high plateau of the North Central Appalachians (EPA Level III ecoregion 62), where Potter, Tioga, McKean, and Cameron counties all sit in USDA zone 5b with only 160-166 frost-free days — Potter's 160 is the state minimum, roughly five weeks shorter than Pennsylvania's median season. This is the "PA Wilds" / "God's Country" cold pocket: cold-air-pooling ridges and hollows, thin acidic plateau soils, and a last frost that holds into the first week of May. The generic multi-state Appalachia region spans a far milder 5b-8b across a 211-day median season and never resolves this plateau's short, cold window.
The Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania — Carbon, Monroe, Pike, and Wayne counties — span USDA hardiness zones 6a to 6b with frost-free growing seasons of roughly 167 to 198 days.
The Cumberland Valley is the Great Valley's northern anchor — the same limestone floor that runs south into the Shenandoah, but colder-wintered and shorter-seasoned, and split by the Mason-Dixon line across Cumberland and Franklin counties in Pennsylvania and Washington County in Maryland. Scoped to just those three, the picture tightens to a uniform USDA zone 7a and a 215-to-219-day frost-free season — last frost in early April, first in early November — steadier than the wide 5b-8b range the broader Appalachian page has to average across. The valley reads in two halves: a flat limestone floor where cold air pools on clear spring nights, long given over to dairy pasture, hay, and grain, and the elevated Blue Ridge benches of South Mountain along the eastern edge, where good cold-air drainage has kept apple and peach orchards in business for generations. Those same well-drained slopes carry the federally recognized Cumberland Valley AVA's wine grapes.
The Brandywine Valley traces the Brandywine Creek watershed (USGS hydrologic unit 02040205) from Chester County, Pennsylvania into New Castle County, Delaware, spanning USDA zones 7a to 7b and a frost-free season of roughly 213 to 241 days.
Pennsylvania's only USDA zone 7b ground — the warmest, longest-season corner of the state. Philadelphia County runs about 250 frost-free days and Delaware County about 239, against a statewide county median of 197, so the tidal Delaware–Schuylkill corridor and the city's urban heat island buy growers here a full zone and roughly a month of extra season over the 7a suburbs just north. Last frost typically clears by mid-to-late March and first frost holds off until late November.