Wheatley Heights, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Wheatley Heights, 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 Wheatley Heights 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 Wheatley Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Wheatley Heights — the short answer
Wheatley Heights, New York: USDA zone 7b, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 844 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 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 844 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 Wheatley Heights's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Wheatley Heights's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Wheatley Heights
Each reading below is measured for Wheatley Heights itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWheatley Heights runs about 240 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
MeasuredWheatley Heights 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 Wheatley Heights is in
Wheatley Heights sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Wheatley Heights's own centroid rather than borrowed from Suffolk County.
What Grows in Wheatley Heights
Every plant below cleared Wheatley Heights's own zone 7b and its 240-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Wheatley Heights?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 21 — 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 Wheatley Heights
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Wheatley Heights, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Wheatley Heights
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Wheatley Heights. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ABC CLEANERSBrownfields · 2500 ft
- S 27741. 1Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- S 27739. 1Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- S 27740. 1Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- S 20300. 1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- S 30506. 1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- S 20057. 1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- S 48193. 1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- CONSERVATIVE GAS DIV OF NATL PROPANE CPBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- AUTO MART CENTER INCBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- LUNN INDUSTRIES INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- WELD BUILT BODY CO INCBrownfields · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Wheatley Heights'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 Wheatley Heights.
Total Sites
4,058
within ~10 miles of Wheatley Heights
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
61 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Wheatley Heights
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Wheatley Heights
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Wheatley Heights, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Wheatley Heights — Nitrate (1,960 sites) and Superfund (61 sites). 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Wheatley Heights
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 Wheatley Heights average
Your land is one point inside Wheatley Heights
Everything above resolves to Wheatley Heights as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 844 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 Wheatley Heights Average
Wheatley Heights Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Wheatley Heights
- ●One soil character for all of Wheatley Heights
- ●Frost dates read at Wheatley Heights's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Wheatley Heights's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Wheatley Heights
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Wheatley Heights, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Wheatley Heights averages can't show:
We read public map data around Wheatley Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wheatley Heights average
How we know this about Wheatley Heights
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 Wheatley Heights’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 Wheatley Heights
When does frost risk typically end in Wheatley Heights?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Wheatley Heights 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 Wheatley Heights?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Wheatley Heights typically arrives around Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 7, so the watching starts about Oct 22 — about 240 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Wheatley Heights?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Wheatley Heights sees about 240 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Nov 7, about 205 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Wheatley Heights?
The federal record around Wheatley Heights runs heavier than most — 4,058 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (1,960), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Wheatley Heights?
From about Oct 22 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 21 (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 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Wheatley Heights's scale — its 7b band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Wheatley Heights'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 Wheatley Heights’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Wheatley Heights's own scale — its own ~240-day season between 28°F freezes, the 844 acres it covers and 4,058 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Wheatley Heights's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Wheatley Heights's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 21 and the ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,058 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Wheatley Heights, the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Wheatley Heights's boundary and the 844 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~240-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Wheatley Heights's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Wheatley Heightslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Wheatley Heights's 844 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Suffolk County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Suffolk 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 Suffolk County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Wheatley Heights's 844 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Wheatley Heights you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 844 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Wheatley Heights-wide figureread your own land →