Prince George's County, in Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Prince George's County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Prince George's County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Prince George's County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Prince George's County — the short answer
Prince George's County, Maryland: USDA zone 7b, about 237 days between hard freezes, across 309K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~237
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 309K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Prince George's County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Prince George's County's 237-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Prince George's County
Across a year, Prince George's County accumulates about 3,893 growing degree days above 50°F, about 29 more than the middle Maryland county — ahead of 13 of Maryland’s 24 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Prince George's County
Across Prince George's County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Marr, Dodon, and Beltsville are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.3–5.0, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
17%
Hydric soils
9%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Prince George's County
The USDA soil survey maps 53% of Prince George's County as well drained — but another 35% drains differently: 21% moderately well drained, 9% poorly drained.
Marr is the most extensive named soil at 12% of mapped acres, then Dodon (10%) and Beltsville (9%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Prince George's County
Each reading below is measured for Prince George's County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Prince George's County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — ground that drains quickly.
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
MeasuredTopsoil across Prince George's County runs about pH 4.3–5.0, on the acidic side.
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
Season length
MeasuredPrince George's County runs about 237 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
MeasuredPrince George's County 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 Prince George's County is in
Prince George's County sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Prince George's County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Prince George's County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 237-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile.
Is it too late to plant in Prince George's County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — 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 Prince George's County
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Prince George's County, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle43 documented records
- monarch butterfly425 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Prince George's County
USGS estimates 5,950 lb of Glyphosate on Prince George's County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (4,036 lb) and Metolachlor-s (3,588 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Prince George's County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Prince George's County — 2,746 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 22 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Prince George's County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Prince George's County
Closest first, across Prince George's County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Presidential Plaza Building IIUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Buddy Farr ExcavatingUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Exxon R/S #25382Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- EXXON 8700 PA AVENUEBrownfields · 2500 ft
- MID-ATLANTIC CONSTRUCTION SUPPLYBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- Mockabees Oil Co.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Forestville Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- PEPCO FORESTVILLE SERVICE CENTERBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- Q-Card #407Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- FINISHMASTER, INC #028Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- Forestville VFD #23Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- MEDSTAR MEDICAL GROUP AT UPPER MARLBOROBrownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Prince George's County'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 Prince George's County.
Sources Checked
across Prince George's County
Severity Distribution
across Prince George's County
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 Prince George's County
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 Prince George's County average
Your land is one point inside Prince George's County
Everything above resolves to Prince George's County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 309K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Prince George's County Average
Prince George's County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Prince George's County
- ●One soil character for all of Prince George's County
- ●Frost dates read at Prince George's County's scale: Mar 24 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Prince George's County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Prince George's County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Prince George's County, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Prince George's County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Prince George's County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Prince George's County average
How we know this about Prince George's County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Prince George's County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Prince George's County
When does frost risk typically end in Prince George's County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Prince George's County typically lands around Mar 24, 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 14.
How long is the growing season in Prince George's County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Prince George's County sees about 237 frost-free days — roughly Mar 24 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 14 to Nov 2, about 202 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Prince George's County?
The federal record around Prince George's County runs heavier than most — 2,746 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,437), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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.
Everything above is measured at Prince George's County's scale — its 7b band and its 237-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Prince George's County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Maryland's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Prince George's County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Prince George's County's own scale — its own ~237-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 2,746 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Prince George's County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Prince George's County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~237-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Prince George's CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 2,746 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Prince George's County's boundary and the 308,864 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~237-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Prince George's County sitting wholly inside the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Prince George's County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Prince George's County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Maryland grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Maryland
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Prince George's County — the ~237 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Prince George's County's 308,864 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 2,746 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Prince George's Countyread your own land →