Baltimore Highlands, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Baltimore Highlands, 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 Baltimore Highlands 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 Baltimore Highlands — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Baltimore Highlands — the short answer
Baltimore Highlands, Maryland: USDA zone 8a, about 261 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~261
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 8a is Baltimore Highlands's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Baltimore Highlands's 261-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Baltimore Highlands
Each reading below is measured for Baltimore Highlands itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBaltimore Highlands runs about 261 days between hard freezes — 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
MeasuredBaltimore Highlands sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Baltimore Highlands is in
Baltimore Highlands sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Baltimore Highlands's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Baltimore County is mostly Northern Piedmont. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Baltimore Highlands
Every plant below cleared Baltimore Highlands's own zone 8a and its 261-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Baltimore Highlands?
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 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
Documented around Baltimore Highlands
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Baltimore Highlands, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Baltimore Highlands
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Baltimore Highlands. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- EXXON RAS #25371Brownfields · 1200 ft
- BOB'S AUTO BODY SHOPBrownfields · 1500 ft
- ADELL PLASTICSToxics Release Inventory · 2500 ft
- ADELL PLASTICSBrownfields · 2500 ft
- Marrube Trailer Rental, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- BA Gd 3Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- H R SIMON COMPANY INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- 4 D TRAILERBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- H R SIMON COMPANY INCToxics Release Inventory · 0.5 mi
- AXIAL 360Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- TURNBULL ENTERPRISESToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- TURNBULL ENTERPRISESBrownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Baltimore Highlands'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 Baltimore Highlands.
Total Sites
5,074
within ~10 miles of Baltimore Highlands
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
41 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Baltimore Highlands
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Baltimore Highlands
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Baltimore Highlands
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 Baltimore Highlands average
Your land is one point inside Baltimore Highlands
Everything above resolves to Baltimore Highlands as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 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 Baltimore Highlands Average
Baltimore Highlands Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Baltimore Highlands
- ●One soil character for all of Baltimore Highlands
- ●Frost dates read at Baltimore Highlands's scale: Mar 11 to Nov 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Baltimore Highlands's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Baltimore Highlands
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Baltimore Highlands, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Baltimore Highlands averages can't show:
We read public map data around Baltimore Highlands — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Baltimore Highlands average
How we know this about Baltimore Highlands
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 Baltimore Highlands’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 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 Baltimore Highlands
When does frost risk typically end in Baltimore Highlands?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Baltimore Highlands typically lands around Mar 11, 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 1.
When is the first frost in Baltimore Highlands?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Baltimore Highlands typically arrives around Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 13, so the watching starts about Oct 28 — about 261 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Baltimore Highlands?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Baltimore Highlands sees about 261 frost-free days — roughly Mar 11 through Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 1 to Nov 13, about 226 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Baltimore Highlands?
The federal record around Baltimore Highlands runs heavier than most — 5,074 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,424), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Baltimore Highlands?
From about Oct 28 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 27 (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 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Baltimore Highlands's scale — its 8a band and its 261-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Baltimore Highlands'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 Baltimore Highlands’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Baltimore Highlands's own scale — its own ~261-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,110 acres it covers and 5,074 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Baltimore Highlands's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Baltimore Highlands's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 11 and Nov 27 and the ~261-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 5,074 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Baltimore Highlands, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Baltimore Highlands's boundary and the 1,110 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~261-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Baltimore Highlands sits in the Southeastern Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Baltimore Highlandslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Baltimore Highlands's 1,110 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Baltimore County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Baltimore County
- The growing challenges every Maryland grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Maryland
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Baltimore County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Baltimore Highlands's 1,110 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Baltimore Highlands you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,110 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 Baltimore Highlands-wide figureread your own land →
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