Rockland County, in New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Rockland County lies within the Hudson Valley — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Rockland County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Rockland County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Rockland County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Rockland County — the short answer
Rockland County, New York: USDA zone 7a, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 111K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 111K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 7a is Rockland County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rockland County's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Rockland County
Across a year, Rockland County accumulates about 2,897 growing degree days above 50°F, about 661 more than the middle New York county — ahead of 53 of New York’s 62 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Rockland County
Across Rockland County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Wethersfield, Charlton, and Chatfield are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a gravelly silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.3, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
17%
Hydric soils
9%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Rockland County
The USDA soil survey maps 64% of Rockland County as well drained — but another 15% drains differently: 5% very poorly drained, 5% somewhat excessively drained.
Wethersfield is the most extensive named soil at 35% of mapped acres, then Charlton (14%) and Chatfield (12%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Rockland County
Each reading below is measured for Rockland County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Rockland County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Rockland County runs about pH 5.3, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredRockland County runs about 224 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
MeasuredRockland County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Rockland County is in
Rockland County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Northern Piedmont (69%) and Northeastern Highlands (30%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Rockland County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Rockland County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 224-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's New York profile.
Is it too late to plant in Rockland County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Rockland County
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Rockland County, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle19 documented records
- monarch butterfly25 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Rockland County
USGS estimates 62 lb of Diazinon on Rockland County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Chlorpyrifos (44 lb) and Carbaryl (43 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Rockland County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Rockland County — 559 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 15 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Rockland County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Rockland County
Closest first, across Rockland County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- A-Z SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- FRIEDWALD CENTER FOR REHABILITATION & NURSING LLCBrownfields · 2600 ft
- ROCKLAND COUNTY HIGHWAY DEPARTMENTBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- ROCKLAND COUNTY CORRECTIONAL FACILITYBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- RAMAPO INCINERATORSuperfund · 0.7 mi
- LANGSAM FAVISHBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- E.R.C.S.D. BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- DIGESTIVE DISEASE ASSOCIATES OF ROCKLANDBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- JAWONIO, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- SMITH FARM FORMERLYBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- NEW YORK TELEPHONE COBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- PAUL SWEDENBURGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rockland County'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 Rockland County.
Sources Checked
across Rockland County
Severity Distribution
across Rockland County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rockland County, two things run higher than the national average across Rockland County — Superfund (15 sites) and Brownfields (349 sites). 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.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Rockland County
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 Rockland County average
Your land is one point inside Rockland County
Everything above resolves to Rockland County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 111K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Rockland County Average
Rockland County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Rockland County
- ●One soil character for all of Rockland County
- ●Frost dates read at Rockland County's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rockland County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Rockland County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rockland County, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rockland County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rockland County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rockland County average
How we know this about Rockland County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Rockland County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Rockland County
When does frost risk typically end in Rockland County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rockland County typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
How long is the growing season in Rockland County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rockland County sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 28, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rockland County?
The federal record around Rockland County is a meaningful one — 559 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (349), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
Everything above is measured at Rockland County's scale — its 7a band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rockland County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads New York's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Rockland County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Rockland County's own scale — its own ~224-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 559 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rockland County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rockland County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Rockland CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 559 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Rockland County's boundary and the 111,158 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Rockland County spans, Northern Piedmont the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Rockland County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Rockland County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every New York grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New York
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Rockland County — the ~224 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Rockland County's 111,158 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 559 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Rockland Countyread your own land →