Temple Hills, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Temple 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 Temple 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 Temple Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Temple Hills — the short answer
Temple Hills, Maryland: USDA zone 7b, about 252 days between hard freezes, across 901 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~252
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 901 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 Temple Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Temple Hills's 252-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Temple Hills
Each reading below is measured for Temple Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTemple Hills runs about 252 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
MeasuredTemple 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 Temple Hills is in
Temple Hills sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Temple Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Prince George's County.
What Grows in Temple Hills
Every plant below cleared Temple Hills's own zone 7b and its 252-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Temple Hills?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Temple Hills
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Temple Hills, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Temple Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Temple Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Southeast Mobile Estates, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- SOUND SOLUTIONSBrownfields · 2500 ft
- HUNTLEY SQUARE CLEANERSBrownfields · 2500 ft
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #19139Brownfields · 2600 ft
- Brinkley SunocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- SHA BRIDGE #1616600Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- FAMILY DOLLAR #7520Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- SUNRISE CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- Auto Body ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Remington Place ApartmentsUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- PEH, LLC #876Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Jiffy LubeUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Temple 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 Temple Hills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Temple Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Temple Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Temple Hills, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 58 sites within ~10 miles of Temple Hills. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Temple 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 Temple Hills average
Your land is one point inside Temple Hills
Everything above resolves to Temple Hills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 901 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 Temple Hills Average
Temple Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Temple Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Temple Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Temple Hills's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Temple Hills's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Temple Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Temple Hills, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Temple Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Temple Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Temple Hills average
How we know this about Temple 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 Temple 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 Temple Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Temple Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Temple Hills typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Temple Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Temple Hills typically arrives around Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 10, so the watching starts about Oct 25 — about 252 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Temple Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Temple Hills sees about 252 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 10, about 217 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Temple Hills?
The federal record around Temple Hills runs heavier than most — 4,533 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,490), 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 Temple Hills?
From about Oct 25 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 24 (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 24. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Temple Hills's scale — its 7b band and its 252-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Temple 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 Temple Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Temple Hills's own scale — its own ~252-day season between 28°F freezes, the 901 acres it covers and 4,533 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Temple Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Temple Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 24 and the ~252-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,533 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Temple Hills, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Temple Hills's boundary and the 901 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~252-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Temple Hills's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Temple Hillslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Temple Hills's 901 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 Temple Hills's 901 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Temple 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 901 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 Temple Hills-wide figureread your own land →
More in Maryland
Wider growing context
What grows across MarylandTemple Hills sits outside our named growing regions, so Maryland as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides