Pleasant Hills, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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.
Even in Pleasant Hills, 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 Pleasant Hills 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 Pleasant Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pleasant Hills — the short answer
Pleasant Hills, Maryland: USDA zone 7b, about 236 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~236
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Pleasant Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pleasant Hills's 236-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pleasant Hills
Each reading below is measured for Pleasant Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPleasant Hills runs about 236 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
MeasuredPleasant Hills 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 Pleasant Hills is in
Pleasant Hills sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pleasant Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Harford County.
What Grows in Pleasant Hills
Every plant below cleared Pleasant Hills's own zone 7b and its 236-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pleasant Hills?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (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 Pleasant Hills
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Pleasant Hills, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pleasant Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pleasant Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HA Dc 122Nitrate · 1100 ft
- Fork Paint & RepairUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- FORK PAINT & REPAIRBrownfields · 1600 ft
- Eagle Auto SalesUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Fallston Shell #471Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- DIETZ AUTO REPIAR SERVICESBrownfields · 2300 ft
- Fallston CitgoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- H. Hofmann Co., Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #4018Brownfields · 2400 ft
- Dick's Plumbing & Heating Co., Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- WESTERN AUTOBrownfields · 2500 ft
- TRACTOR SUPPLY COMPANY 2148Brownfields · 2600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pleasant Hills'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 Pleasant Hills.
Total Sites
1,367
within ~10 miles of Pleasant Hills
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pleasant Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pleasant Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pleasant Hills, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 376 sites within ~10 miles of Pleasant Hills. 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 Pleasant Hills
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 Pleasant Hills average
Your land is one point inside Pleasant Hills
Everything above resolves to Pleasant Hills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Pleasant Hills Average
Pleasant Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Pleasant Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Pleasant Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Pleasant Hills's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pleasant Hills's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pleasant Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pleasant Hills, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pleasant Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pleasant Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pleasant Hills average
How we know this about Pleasant Hills
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 Pleasant Hills’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 Pleasant Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Pleasant Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pleasant Hills typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Pleasant Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pleasant Hills typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 236 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pleasant Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pleasant Hills sees about 236 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Nov 2, about 201 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pleasant Hills?
The federal record around Pleasant Hills is a meaningful one — 1,367 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (524), the nearest Nitrate 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 Pleasant Hills?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pleasant Hills's scale — its 7b band and its 236-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pleasant Hills'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 Pleasant Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pleasant Hills's own scale — its own ~236-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,790 acres it covers and 1,367 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pleasant Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pleasant Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 16 and the ~236-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,367 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pleasant Hills, the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pleasant Hills's boundary and the 2,790 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~236-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pleasant Hills's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Pleasant Hillslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Pleasant Hills's 2,790 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Harford County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Harford 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 Harford County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pleasant Hills's 2,790 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pleasant Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,790 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Pleasant Hills-wide figureread your own land →
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