Sea Cliff, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
On paper, cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Sea Cliff, 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 Sea Cliff 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 Sea Cliff — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Sea Cliff — the short answer
Sea Cliff, New York: USDA zone 7b, about 253 days between hard freezes, across 714 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~253
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 714 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 Sea Cliff's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sea Cliff's 253-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sea Cliff
Each reading below is measured for Sea Cliff itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSea Cliff runs about 253 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
MeasuredSea Cliff 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 Sea Cliff is in
Sea Cliff sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Sea Cliff's own centroid rather than borrowed from Nassau County.
What Grows in Sea Cliff
Every plant below cleared Sea Cliff's own zone 7b and its 253-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sea Cliff?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 30 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Sea Cliff
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Sea Cliff, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Sea Cliff
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sea Cliff. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WERKS I INC DBA JOHN HOWE PORSCHEBrownfields · 1700 ft
- GARYS COACH & COLLISION WORKS INCBrownfields · 1700 ft
- NEW YORK AMERICAN WATER - SEA CLIFFPFAS · 1900 ft
- Beach south of Glen Cove Creek at Sea Cliff, NYNitrate · 2000 ft
- N 7857. 1Nitrate · 2100 ft
- LIBERTY UTILITIES NEW YORK WATER CORP SEA CLIFF PUMPING STATIONBrownfields · 2300 ft
- BREWER MARINABrownfields · 0.6 mi
- BREWER GLEN COVE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Tappen Beach at Hempstead Harbor, Sea Cliff, NYNitrate · 0.7 mi
- N 4462. 2Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- GLEN COVE MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #0997Brownfields · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sea Cliff'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 Sea Cliff.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sea Cliff
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sea Cliff
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sea Cliff, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 1,838 sites within ~10 miles of Sea Cliff. 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 Sea Cliff
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 Sea Cliff average
Your land is one point inside Sea Cliff
Everything above resolves to Sea Cliff as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 714 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 Sea Cliff Average
Sea Cliff Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Sea Cliff
- ●One soil character for all of Sea Cliff
- ●Frost dates read at Sea Cliff's scale: Mar 22 to Nov 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sea Cliff's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sea Cliff
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sea Cliff, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sea Cliff averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sea Cliff — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sea Cliff average
How we know this about Sea Cliff
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 Sea Cliff’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 Sea Cliff
When does frost risk typically end in Sea Cliff?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sea Cliff typically lands around Mar 22, 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 12.
When is the first frost in Sea Cliff?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sea Cliff typically arrives around Nov 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 16, so the watching starts about Oct 31 — about 253 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sea Cliff?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sea Cliff sees about 253 frost-free days — roughly Mar 22 through Nov 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 12 to Nov 16, about 218 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sea Cliff?
The federal record around Sea Cliff runs heavier than most — 4,233 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (1,838), the nearest Brownfields 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 Sea Cliff?
From about Oct 31 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Sea Cliff's scale — its 7b band and its 253-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sea Cliff'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 Sea Cliff’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Sea Cliff's own scale — its own ~253-day season between 28°F freezes, the 714 acres it covers and 4,233 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sea Cliff's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sea Cliff's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 22 and Nov 30 and the ~253-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,233 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sea Cliff, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sea Cliff's boundary and the 714 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~253-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Sea Cliff's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Sea Clifflydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Sea Cliff's 714 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 Sea Cliff's 714 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sea Cliff you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 714 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Sea Cliff-wide figureread your own land →