Leonia, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Leonia, 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 Leonia 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 Leonia — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Leonia — the short answer
Leonia, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 251 days between hard freezes, across 975 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~251
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 975 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 Leonia's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Leonia's 251-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Leonia
Each reading below is measured for Leonia itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLeonia runs about 251 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
MeasuredLeonia 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 Leonia is in
Leonia sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Leonia's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bergen County.
What Grows in Leonia
Every plant below cleared Leonia's own zone 7b and its 251-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Leonia?
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 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 28 — 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 Leonia
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Leonia, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Leonia
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Leonia. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LEONIA NORTH-OVERPECK PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- POLICE DEPARTMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- DELTAUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- LEONIA TEXACO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #2746Brownfields · 900 ft
- HIL/DEN ASSOCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- 335 GRANDE AVENUEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- CENTRAL AUTO TECHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- A&D AUTO BODY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST CHURCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- KULITE SEMICONDUCTOR PRODUCTS INCBrownfields · 1600 ft
- KULITE SEMICONDUCTOR PRODUCTS INCToxics Release Inventory · 1700 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Leonia'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 Leonia.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Leonia
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Leonia
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 Leonia
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 Leonia average
Your land is one point inside Leonia
Everything above resolves to Leonia as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 975 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 Leonia Average
Leonia Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Leonia
- ●One soil character for all of Leonia
- ●Frost dates read at Leonia's scale: Mar 22 to Nov 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Leonia's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Leonia
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Leonia, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Leonia averages can't show:
We read public map data around Leonia — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Leonia average
How we know this about Leonia
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 Leonia’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 Leonia
When does frost risk typically end in Leonia?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Leonia typically lands around Mar 22, 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 12.
When is the first frost in Leonia?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Leonia typically arrives around Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 14, so the watching starts about Oct 29 — about 251 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Leonia?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Leonia sees about 251 frost-free days — roughly Mar 22 through Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 12 to Nov 14, about 216 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Leonia?
The federal record around Leonia runs heavier than most — 13,503 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (7,833), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Leonia?
From about Oct 29 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 28 (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 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Leonia's scale — its 7b band and its 251-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Leonia'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 Leonia’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Leonia's own scale — its own ~251-day season between 28°F freezes, the 975 acres it covers and 13,503 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Leonia's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Leonia's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 22 and Nov 28 and the ~251-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 13,503 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Leonia, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Leonia's boundary and the 975 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~251-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Leonia's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Leonialydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Leonia's 975 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 Leonia's 975 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Leonia you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 975 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Leonia-wide figureread your own land →