Moss Bluff, Louisiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
On paper, artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Moss Bluff, 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 Moss Bluff 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 Moss Bluff — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Moss Bluff — the short answer
Moss Bluff, Louisiana: USDA zone 9a, about 313 days between hard freezes, across 10K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 30
- Calcasieu Parish normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 9
- Calcasieu Parish normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~313
- Calcasieu Parish normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 10K 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 Calcasieu Parish’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Moss Bluff's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Moss Bluff's 313-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Moss Bluff
Each reading below is measured for Moss Bluff itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsMoss Bluff runs about 313 days between hard freezes (read from Calcasieu Parish, the closest normal to Moss Bluff) — 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
MeasuredMoss Bluff 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 Moss Bluff is in
Moss Bluff sits in the South Central Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Moss Bluff's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Calcasieu Parish is mostly Western Gulf Coastal Plain. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Moss Bluff
Every plant below cleared Moss Bluff's own zone 9a and its 313-day season. Each card opens that plant's Louisiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Moss Bluff?
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 Jan 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 9 — 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 Moss Bluff
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Moss Bluff. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- J & V INCBrownfields · 1200 ft
- DELAINS PAINT & BODYBrownfields · 1800 ft
- Pelican Lumber & Export IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office - Moss Bluff Law Enforcement CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- ACADIAN AMBULANCE SERVICEBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- Ward One BarnUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CALCASIEU PARISH SCHOOL BOARD - SAM HOUSTON HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- Mera Investments LLC - U-Pak-ItUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Cu-428Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- SERVICE TIRE & AUTO OF MOSS BLUFFBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- KENS CAR CAREBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- EGGLESTONS AUTOBrownfields · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Moss Bluff'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 Moss Bluff.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Moss Bluff
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Moss Bluff
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Moss Bluff
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 Moss Bluff average
Your land is one point inside Moss Bluff
Everything above resolves to Moss Bluff as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 10K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Calcasieu 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 Moss Bluff Average
Moss Bluff Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Moss Bluff
- ●One soil character for all of Moss Bluff
- ●Frost dates read at Moss Bluff's scale: Jan 30 to Dec 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Moss Bluff's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Moss Bluff
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Moss Bluff, Louisiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Moss Bluff averages can't show:
We read public map data around Moss Bluff — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Moss Bluff average
How we know this about Moss Bluff
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 Calcasieu 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 Moss Bluff
When does frost risk typically end in Moss Bluff?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Moss Bluff typically lands around Jan 30, 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 Feb 20.
When is the first frost in Moss Bluff?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Moss Bluff typically arrives around Dec 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 25, so the watching starts about Nov 9 — about 313 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Moss Bluff?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Moss Bluff sees about 313 frost-free days — roughly Jan 30 through Dec 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 20 to Nov 25, about 278 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Moss Bluff?
The federal record around Moss Bluff is a meaningful one — 1,493 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (698), the nearest Brownfields 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 Moss Bluff?
From about Nov 9 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Moss Bluff's scale — its 9a band and its 313-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Moss Bluff'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 Moss Bluff’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Moss Bluff's own scale — the 9,746 acres it covers and 1,493 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Moss Bluff's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 1,493 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Moss Bluff, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Moss Bluff's boundary and the 9,746 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~313-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Moss Bluff sits in the South Central Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Moss Bluff has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Calcasieu Parish
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Moss Bluff's 9,746 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Calcasieu County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Calcasieu 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 Calcasieu County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Moss Bluff's 9,746 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Moss Bluff you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 9,746 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Moss Bluff-wide figureread your own land →
More in Louisiana
Growing region
Nearby growing guides