Bowie, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bowie, 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 Bowie 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 Bowie — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bowie — the short answer
Bowie, Maryland: USDA zone 7b, about 216 days between hard freezes, across 13K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~216
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 13K 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 7b is Bowie's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bowie's 216-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bowie
Each reading below is measured for Bowie itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBowie runs about 216 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
MeasuredBowie sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Bowie is in
Bowie sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bowie's own centroid rather than borrowed from Prince George's County.
What Grows in Bowie
Every plant below cleared Bowie's own zone 7b and its 216-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bowie?
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 Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Bowie
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Bowie, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bowie
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bowie. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DUNN VIRGINIA HOME OFBrownfields · 1400 ft
- UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BOWIE HEALTH CENTERBrownfields · 2500 ft
- Bowie Health CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- One Town CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- PG Cf 7Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- BOWIE CORPORATE CENTERBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- SAFEWAY STORE #1804Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- SEARS #2034/2647Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- PG Cf 3Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- PG Cf 33Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- TARGET STORE T1004Brownfields · 1.0 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #16393Brownfields · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bowie'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 Bowie.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bowie
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bowie
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 Bowie
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 Bowie average
Your land is one point inside Bowie
Everything above resolves to Bowie as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 13K 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 Bowie Average
Bowie Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Bowie
- ●One soil character for all of Bowie
- ●Frost dates read at Bowie's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bowie's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bowie
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bowie, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bowie averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bowie — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bowie average
How we know this about Bowie
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 Bowie’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 Bowie
When does frost risk typically end in Bowie?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bowie typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in Bowie?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bowie typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 216 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bowie?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bowie sees about 216 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 19, about 181 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bowie?
The federal record around Bowie is a meaningful one — 1,289 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (647), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 Bowie?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bowie's scale — its 7b band and its 216-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bowie'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 Bowie’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bowie's own scale — its own ~216-day season between 28°F freezes, the 13,082 acres it covers and 1,289 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bowie's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bowie's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 2 and the ~216-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,289 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bowie, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bowie's boundary and the 13,082 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~216-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bowie's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Bowielydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bowie's 13,082 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Prince George's County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Prince George's 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 Prince George's County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bowie's 13,082 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bowie you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 13,082 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 Bowie-wide figureread your own land →
More in Maryland
Wider growing context
What grows across MarylandBowie sits outside our named growing regions, so Maryland as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides