East Hills, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in East Hills, 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 East Hills 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 East Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
East Hills — the short answer
East Hills, New York: USDA zone 7b, about 244 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- 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
- ~244
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 East Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against East Hills's 244-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in East Hills
Each reading below is measured for East Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEast Hills runs about 244 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
MeasuredEast Hills 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 East Hills is in
East Hills sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at East Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Nassau County.
What Grows in East Hills
Every plant below cleared East Hills's own zone 7b and its 244-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in East Hills?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (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. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around East Hills
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from East Hills, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near East Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of East Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- INC VILLAGE OF EAST HILLSBrownfields · 500 ft
- NYS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- N 4265. 1Nitrate · 2000 ft
- N 2400. 2Nitrate · 2200 ft
- N 5852. 2Nitrate · 2400 ft
- GETTY #58046Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- HASSET LTDBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #0963Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- HARBOUR HILL CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- N 7980. 1Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- N 5708. 1Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- NYSDOT BIN 1049079Brownfields · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from East Hills'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 East Hills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of East Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of East Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around East Hills, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 2,692 sites within ~10 miles of East Hills. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in East Hills
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 East Hills average
Your land is one point inside East Hills
Everything above resolves to East Hills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 East Hills Average
East Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across East Hills
- ●One soil character for all of East Hills
- ●Frost dates read at East Hills's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not East Hills's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in East Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in East Hills, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that East Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around East Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the East Hills average
How we know this about East Hills
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 East Hills’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 East Hills
When does frost risk typically end in East Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in East Hills typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in East Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in East Hills 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 244 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in East Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, East Hills sees about 244 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Nov 11, about 209 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in East Hills?
The federal record around East Hills runs heavier than most — 5,430 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (2,692), the nearest Brownfields 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 East Hills?
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 East Hills's scale — its 7b band and its 244-day season. Your yard writes its own version of East Hills'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 East Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at East Hills's own scale — its own ~244-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,459 acres it covers and 5,430 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- East Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- East Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 25 and the ~244-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 5,430 documented contamination sites on the federal record near East Hills, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- East Hills's boundary and the 1,459 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~244-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at East Hills's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of East Hillslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so East Hills's 1,459 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Nassau County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Nassau County
- The growing challenges every New York grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New York
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Nassau County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among East Hills's 1,459 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of East Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,459 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 East Hills-wide figureread your own land →