Heritage Hills, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Heritage 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 Heritage 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 Heritage Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Heritage Hills — the short answer
Heritage Hills, New York: USDA zone 6b, about 215 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~215
- 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 6b is Heritage Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Heritage Hills's 215-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Heritage Hills
Each reading below is measured for Heritage Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHeritage Hills runs about 215 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
MeasuredHeritage Hills sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Heritage Hills is in
Heritage Hills sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Heritage Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Westchester County.
What Grows in Heritage Hills
Every plant below cleared Heritage Hills's own zone 6b and its 215-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Heritage Hills?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — 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 Heritage Hills
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Heritage Hills, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Heritage Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Heritage Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CELLULAR ETC & PHOTOBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- SOMERS CENTRAL SCHOOLBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- HERITAGE HILLS WATERWORKS CORPPFAS · 0.7 mi
- SOMERS TOWN HOUSE/HALLPFAS · 0.7 mi
- WE3868Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- WE3871Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- AGT - VALVE 17 CARMELBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #0531Brownfields · 1.2 mi
- WE 40Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- IBM CORPBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- WE3869Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- NYC DEP - MUSCOOT DAM GATEHOUSEBrownfields · 1.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Heritage 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 Heritage Hills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Heritage Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Heritage Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Heritage Hills, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 8 sites within ~10 miles of Heritage Hills. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Heritage 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 Heritage Hills average
Your land is one point inside Heritage Hills
Everything above resolves to Heritage 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 Heritage Hills Average
Heritage Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Heritage Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Heritage Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Heritage Hills's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Heritage Hills's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Heritage Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Heritage Hills, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Heritage Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Heritage Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Heritage Hills average
How we know this about Heritage 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 Heritage 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 Heritage Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Heritage Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Heritage Hills typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Heritage Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Heritage Hills typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 215 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Heritage Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Heritage Hills sees about 215 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 23, about 180 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Heritage Hills?
The federal record around Heritage Hills runs heavier than most — 605 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (239), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.6 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 Heritage Hills?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Heritage Hills's scale — its 6b band and its 215-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Heritage 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 Heritage Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Heritage Hills's own scale — its own ~215-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,201 acres it covers and 605 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Heritage Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Heritage Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 6 and the ~215-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 605 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Heritage Hills, the closest Brownfields record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Heritage Hills's boundary and the 1,201 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~215-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Heritage Hills's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Heritage Hillslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Heritage Hills's 1,201 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Westchester County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Westchester 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 Westchester County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Heritage Hills's 1,201 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Heritage 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 1,201 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.6 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 Heritage Hills-wide figureread your own land →
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