Butterfield Park, New Mexico, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Butterfield 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 Butterfield 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 Butterfield Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Butterfield Park — the short answer
Butterfield Park, New Mexico: USDA zone 8a, about 266 days between hard freezes, across 288 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~266
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 288 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 8a is Butterfield Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Butterfield Park's 266-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Butterfield Park
Each reading below is measured for Butterfield Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredButterfield Park runs about 266 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredButterfield Park sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Butterfield Park is in
Butterfield Park sits in the Chihuahuan Deserts — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at Butterfield Park's own centroid rather than borrowed from Doña Ana County.
What Grows in Butterfield Park
Every plant below cleared Butterfield Park's own zone 8a and its 266-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Mexico profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Butterfield Park?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 23 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
Documented around Butterfield Park
Survey cells within 31 miles of Butterfield Park checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 614 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Butterfield Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Butterfield Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DESERT PARK LEADSuperfund · 1600 ft
- WESTSIDE RECYCLING LLCBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- KN ENTERPRISESBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- IRENES MINI MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- CLC-42, LRG-430, S-29Nitrate · 2.1 mi
- PANCHAS VILLAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- 22S.03E.02.214Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- 22S.03E.11.441Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- Stephenson-Bennett MineMining · 2.6 mi
- Stevenson - BennettMining · 2.6 mi
- Organ DistrictMining · 2.7 mi
- 22S.02E.13.441Nitrate · 2.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Butterfield 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 Butterfield Park.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Butterfield Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Butterfield Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Butterfield Park, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Butterfield Park — Mining (73 sites) and Superfund (14 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Butterfield 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 Butterfield Park average
Your land is one point inside Butterfield Park
Everything above resolves to Butterfield Park as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 288 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 Butterfield Park Average
Butterfield Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Butterfield Park
- ●One soil character for all of Butterfield Park
- ●Frost dates read at Butterfield Park's scale: Mar 2 to Nov 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Butterfield Park's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Butterfield Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Butterfield Park, New Mexico — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Butterfield Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Butterfield Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Butterfield Park average
How we know this about Butterfield 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 Butterfield 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 Butterfield Park
When does frost risk typically end in Butterfield Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Butterfield Park typically lands around Mar 2, 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 Mar 23.
When is the first frost in Butterfield Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Butterfield Park typically arrives around Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 9, so the watching starts about Oct 24 — about 266 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Butterfield Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Butterfield Park sees about 266 frost-free days — roughly Mar 2 through Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 23 to Nov 9, about 231 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Butterfield Park?
The federal record around Butterfield Park runs heavier than most — 358 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (124), the nearest Superfund record about 0.3 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 Butterfield Park?
From about Oct 24 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 23 (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 23. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Butterfield Park's scale — its 8a band and its 266-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Butterfield 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 Butterfield Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Butterfield Park's own scale — its own ~266-day season between 28°F freezes, the 288 acres it covers and 358 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Butterfield Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Butterfield Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 2 and Nov 23 and the ~266-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 358 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Butterfield Park, the closest Superfund record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Butterfield Park's boundary and the 288 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~266-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Butterfield Park's own centroid, the Chihuahuan DesertsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Butterfield Park checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Butterfield Park's 288 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Doña Ana County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Doña Ana County
- The growing challenges every New Mexico grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New Mexico
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Doña Ana County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Butterfield Park's 288 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Butterfield 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 288 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Superfund record about 0.3 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 Butterfield Park-wide figureread your own land →
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