Rising Sun, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Rising Sun, 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 Rising Sun 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 Rising Sun — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Rising Sun — the short answer
Rising Sun, Maryland: USDA zone 7a, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~214
- 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 7a is Rising Sun's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rising Sun's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Rising Sun
Each reading below is measured for Rising Sun itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRising Sun runs about 214 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
MeasuredRising Sun sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Rising Sun is in
Rising Sun sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Rising Sun's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cecil County.
What Grows in Rising Sun
Every plant below cleared Rising Sun's own zone 7a and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Rising Sun?
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 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — 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 Rising Sun
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Rising Sun, first recorded 2018. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Rising Sun
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Rising Sun. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Kunkel Service Co.Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- ELLIOTT AUTO SUPPLY CO., INC., D.B.A. FACTORY MOTOR PARTS (312)Brownfields · 1300 ft
- Karate (Rising Sun Martial Arts-SHA)Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- Western Auto Associate StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- WESTERN AUTOBrownfields · 1400 ft
- Rising Sun Town HallUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Armstrong Telephone Co.Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Southern StatesUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Chrome Dairy & DeliUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Bajaj Traders Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- CITGOBrownfields · 2200 ft
- Arty JohnstonUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rising Sun'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 Rising Sun.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Rising Sun
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Rising Sun
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rising Sun, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Rising Sun — CAFO (30 sites) and Mining (57 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Rising Sun
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 Rising Sun average
Your land is one point inside Rising Sun
Everything above resolves to Rising Sun 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 Rising Sun Average
Rising Sun Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Rising Sun
- ●One soil character for all of Rising Sun
- ●Frost dates read at Rising Sun's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rising Sun's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Rising Sun
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rising Sun, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rising Sun averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rising Sun — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rising Sun average
How we know this about Rising Sun
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 Rising Sun’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 Rising Sun
When does frost risk typically end in Rising Sun?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rising Sun typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Rising Sun?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Rising Sun typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Rising Sun?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rising Sun sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 22, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rising Sun?
The federal record around Rising Sun runs heavier than most — 648 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (239), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Rising Sun?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Rising Sun's scale — its 7a band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rising Sun'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 Rising Sun’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Rising Sun's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,059 acres it covers and 648 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rising Sun's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rising Sun's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 5 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 648 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Rising Sun, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Rising Sun's boundary and the 1,059 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Rising Sun's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Rising Sunlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Rising Sun's 1,059 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cecil County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cecil 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 Cecil County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Rising Sun's 1,059 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Rising Sun you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,059 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Rising Sun-wide figureread your own land →
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