Old Westbury, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, prickly pear, 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 Old Westbury, 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 Old Westbury 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 Old Westbury — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Old Westbury — the short answer
Old Westbury, New York: USDA zone 7b, about 241 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~241
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 5K 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 Old Westbury's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Old Westbury's 241-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Old Westbury
Each reading below is measured for Old Westbury itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOld Westbury runs about 241 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
MeasuredOld Westbury 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 Old Westbury is in
Old Westbury sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Old Westbury's own centroid rather than borrowed from Nassau County.
What Grows in Old Westbury
Every plant below cleared Old Westbury's own zone 7b and its 241-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Old Westbury?
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 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 24 — 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 Old Westbury
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Old Westbury, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Old Westbury
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Old Westbury. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OLD WESTBURY (V)PFAS · 100 ft
- 68 OW LLCBrownfields · 1800 ft
- N 1176. 1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- N 107. 1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- N 8885. 1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- N 7549. 1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- N 1177. 1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- NEW YORK INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGYBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- ALLSTATE INSURANCE CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- SUNY COLLEGE AT OLD WESTBURYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- OLD WESTBURY GARDENSBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- N 9190. 1Nitrate · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Old Westbury'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 Old Westbury.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Old Westbury
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Old Westbury
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Old Westbury, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 2,888 sites within ~10 miles of Old Westbury. 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 Old Westbury
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 Old Westbury average
Your land is one point inside Old Westbury
Everything above resolves to Old Westbury as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 Old Westbury Average
Old Westbury Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Old Westbury
- ●One soil character for all of Old Westbury
- ●Frost dates read at Old Westbury's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Old Westbury's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Old Westbury
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Old Westbury, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Old Westbury averages can't show:
We read public map data around Old Westbury — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Old Westbury average
How we know this about Old Westbury
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 Old Westbury’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 Old Westbury
When does frost risk typically end in Old Westbury?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Old Westbury typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Old Westbury?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Old Westbury typically arrives around Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 10, so the watching starts about Oct 25 — about 241 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Old Westbury?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Old Westbury sees about 241 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Nov 10, about 206 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Old Westbury?
The federal record around Old Westbury runs heavier than most — 5,448 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (2,888), the nearest PFAS 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 Old Westbury?
From about Oct 25 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 24 (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 24. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Old Westbury's scale — its 7b band and its 241-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Old Westbury'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 Old Westbury’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Old Westbury's own scale — its own ~241-day season between 28°F freezes, the 5,486 acres it covers and 5,448 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Old Westbury's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Old Westbury's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 24 and the ~241-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 5,448 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Old Westbury, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Old Westbury's boundary and the 5,486 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~241-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Old Westbury's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Old Westburylydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Old Westbury's 5,486 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 Old Westbury's 5,486 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Old Westbury you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,486 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS 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 Old Westbury-wide figureread your own land →
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