Deville, Louisiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Deville, 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 Deville 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 Deville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Deville — the short answer
Deville, Louisiana: USDA zone 9a, about 291 days between hard freezes, across 8K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 13
- Rapides Parish normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 1
- Rapides Parish normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~291
- Rapides Parish normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 8K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Rapides Parish’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Deville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Deville's 291-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Deville
Each reading below is measured for Deville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsDeville runs about 291 days between hard freezes (read from Rapides Parish, the closest normal to Deville) — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredDeville sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Deville is in
Deville sits in the South Central Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Deville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Rapides Parish.
What Grows in Deville
Every plant below cleared Deville's own zone 9a and its 291-day season. Each card opens that plant's Louisiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Deville?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 1 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
What's on the federal record near Deville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Deville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Panther TalesUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- Deville CentralUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- R-779Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL #13994Brownfields · 1.7 mi
- Deville Oil Well ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- Wiggins Gravel CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- R-1186Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- Deville GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- Alvin Mcneely PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- Rosiers GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Betty WadeUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Rapides Parish School Board - Buckeye High SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Deville'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 Deville.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Deville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Deville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Deville, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 78 sites within ~10 miles of Deville. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Deville
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 Deville average
Your land is one point inside Deville
Everything above resolves to Deville as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 8K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Rapides Parish’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid. 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 town 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 Deville Average
Deville Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Deville
- ●One soil character for all of Deville
- ●Frost dates read at Deville's scale: Feb 13 to Dec 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Deville's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Deville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Deville, Louisiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Deville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Deville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Deville average
How we know this about Deville
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Rapides Parish’s record, because none resolves here; 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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Deville
When does frost risk typically end in Deville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Deville typically lands around Feb 13, 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 Mar 6.
When is the first frost in Deville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Deville typically arrives around Dec 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 17, so the watching starts about Nov 1 — about 291 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Deville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Deville sees about 291 frost-free days — roughly Feb 13 through Dec 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 6 to Nov 17, about 256 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Deville?
The federal record around Deville shows 122 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (78), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Deville?
From about Nov 1 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 Dec 1 (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 Dec 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Deville's scale — its 9a band and its 291-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Deville'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 Deville’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Deville's own scale — the 8,412 acres it covers and 122 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Deville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 122 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Deville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Deville's boundary and the 8,412 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~291-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Deville's own centroid, the South Central PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Deville has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Rapides Parish
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Deville's 8,412 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Rapides County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Rapides County
- The growing challenges every Louisiana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Louisiana
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Rapides County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Deville's 8,412 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Deville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 8,412 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.4 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 Deville-wide figureread your own land →
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