Cliffside Park, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cliffside Park, 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 Cliffside Park 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 Cliffside Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cliffside Park — the short answer
Cliffside Park, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 255 days between hard freezes, across 612 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~255
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 612 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 Cliffside Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cliffside Park's 255-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cliffside Park
Each reading below is measured for Cliffside Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCliffside Park runs about 255 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
MeasuredCliffside Park 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 Cliffside Park is in
Cliffside Park sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cliffside Park's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bergen County.
What Grows in Cliffside Park
Every plant below cleared Cliffside Park's own zone 7b and its 255-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cliffside Park?
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 Feb 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 30 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Cliffside Park
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Cliffside Park, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cliffside Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cliffside Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PHLISADE MOTORS INC DBA C&C FORDUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- YOUNGS CLEANERSBrownfields · 750 ft
- DEMARTINI CHEVROLETUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- ROBBINS & FRANKIE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- FAIRVIEW BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- FAIRVIEW BOOSTER STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- GARO'S FRIENDLY SERVICE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- C&M AUTO REPAIRSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- CLIFFSIDE PARK DEPT PUBLIC WORKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- VWNJ FAIRVIEW BOOSTER PUMP STATIONBrownfields · 2400 ft
- BP 22191Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- OCTAGON PROCESSING INCBrownfields · 2600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cliffside Park'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 Cliffside Park.
Total Sites
16,822
within ~10 miles of Cliffside Park
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
142 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cliffside Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cliffside Park
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.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in Cliffside Park
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 Cliffside Park average
Your land is one point inside Cliffside Park
Everything above resolves to Cliffside Park as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 612 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 Cliffside Park Average
Cliffside Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Cliffside Park
- ●One soil character for all of Cliffside Park
- ●Frost dates read at Cliffside Park's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cliffside Park's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cliffside Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cliffside Park, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cliffside Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cliffside Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cliffside Park average
How we know this about Cliffside Park
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 Cliffside Park’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 Cliffside Park
When does frost risk typically end in Cliffside Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cliffside Park typically lands around Mar 20, 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 10.
When is the first frost in Cliffside Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cliffside Park typically arrives around Nov 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 16, so the watching starts about Oct 31 — about 255 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cliffside Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cliffside Park sees about 255 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Nov 16, about 220 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cliffside Park?
The federal record around Cliffside Park runs heavier than most — 16,822 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (9,681), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Cliffside Park?
From about Oct 31 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cliffside Park's scale — its 7b band and its 255-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cliffside Park'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 Cliffside Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cliffside Park's own scale — its own ~255-day season between 28°F freezes, the 612 acres it covers and 16,822 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cliffside Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cliffside Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 20 and Nov 30 and the ~255-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 16,822 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cliffside Park, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cliffside Park's boundary and the 612 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~255-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cliffside Park's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Cliffside Parklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cliffside Park's 612 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bergen County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bergen County
- The growing challenges every New Jersey grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New Jersey
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Bergen County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cliffside Park's 612 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cliffside Park you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 612 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Cliffside Park-wide figureread your own land →