Mount Royal, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Expect cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Mount Royal, 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 Mount Royal 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 Mount Royal — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Mount Royal — the short answer
Mount Royal, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 250 days between hard freezes, across 353 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 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~250
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 353 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 Mount Royal's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mount Royal's 250-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mount Royal
Each reading below is measured for Mount Royal itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMount Royal runs about 250 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
MeasuredMount Royal 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 Mount Royal is in
Mount Royal sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mount Royal's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Gloucester County is mostly Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Mount Royal
Every plant below cleared Mount Royal's own zone 7b and its 250-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mount Royal?
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 25 — 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 Mount Royal
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Mount Royal, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mount Royal
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mount Royal. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- C W BROWN FOODS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- GETTY 56131Underground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- AT&TUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- GATTUSO'S AUTO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- 150279-- Shell Obs 7Nitrate · 2200 ft
- VERANOVA L.P.Toxics Release Inventory · 2400 ft
- VERANOVA, L.P.Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- W.R. GRACE & CO. - CONN.Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- COIM USABrownfields · 0.7 mi
- COIM USAToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- EAST GREENWICH TWPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- BOSTIK, INCToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mount Royal'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 Mount Royal.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mount Royal
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mount Royal
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mount Royal, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 73 sites within ~10 miles of Mount Royal. 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 Mount Royal
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 Mount Royal average
Your land is one point inside Mount Royal
Everything above resolves to Mount Royal as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 353 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 Mount Royal Average
Mount Royal Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Mount Royal
- ●One soil character for all of Mount Royal
- ●Frost dates read at Mount Royal's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mount Royal's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mount Royal
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mount Royal, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mount Royal averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mount Royal — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mount Royal average
How we know this about Mount Royal
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 Mount Royal’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 Mount Royal
When does frost risk typically end in Mount Royal?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mount Royal 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 Mount Royal?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mount Royal typically arrives around Nov 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 11, so the watching starts about Oct 26 — about 250 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mount Royal?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mount Royal sees about 250 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Nov 11, about 215 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mount Royal?
The federal record around Mount Royal runs heavier than most — 3,641 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,560), 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 Mount Royal?
From about Oct 26 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 25 (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 25. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mount Royal's scale — its 7b band and its 250-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mount Royal'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 Mount Royal’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mount Royal's own scale — its own ~250-day season between 28°F freezes, the 353 acres it covers and 3,641 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mount Royal's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mount Royal's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 20 and Nov 25 and the ~250-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,641 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mount Royal, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mount Royal's boundary and the 353 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~250-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Mount Royal sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Mount Royallydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Mount Royal's 353 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Gloucester County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Gloucester 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 Gloucester County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mount Royal's 353 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mount Royal you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 353 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 Mount Royal-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Jersey
Nearby growing guides