Yonkers, 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 Yonkers, 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 Yonkers 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 Yonkers — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Yonkers — the short answer
Yonkers, New York: USDA zone 7b, about 245 days between hard freezes, across 12K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- 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
- ~245
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 12K 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 Yonkers's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Yonkers's 245-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Yonkers
Each reading below is measured for Yonkers itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredYonkers runs about 245 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
MeasuredYonkers 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 Yonkers is in
Yonkers sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Yonkers's own centroid rather than borrowed from Westchester County.
What Grows in Yonkers
Every plant below cleared Yonkers's own zone 7b and its 245-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Yonkers?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Yonkers
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Yonkers, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Yonkers
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Yonkers. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- VINNY'S CITGO SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- BRYN MAWR DRY CLEANERSBrownfields · 950 ft
- YONKERS PUBLIC SCHOOLSBrownfields · 1500 ft
- BLUETEC CABINETRY LTDBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- WESTCHESTER COUNTYBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- SASSONE BROS AUTO BODY INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- CENTRAL AUTO BODY COLLISION WESTCHESTERBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- CON EDISON MH 10802Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- CENTRAL MAINTENANCE BUS FACILITYBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- CON EDISONBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- T.C. DUNHAM PAINT CO. WAREHOUSESuperfund · 0.6 mi
- ECCO III ENTERPRISESBrownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Yonkers'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 Yonkers.
Total Sites
5,124
within ~10 miles of Yonkers
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
23 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Yonkers
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Yonkers
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Yonkers
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 Yonkers average
Your land is one point inside Yonkers
Everything above resolves to Yonkers as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 12K 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 city 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 Yonkers Average
Yonkers Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Yonkers
- ●One soil character for all of Yonkers
- ●Frost dates read at Yonkers's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 25
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Yonkers's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Yonkers
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Yonkers, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Yonkers averages can't show:
We read public map data around Yonkers — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Yonkers average
How we know this about Yonkers
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Yonkers’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Yonkers
When does frost risk typically end in Yonkers?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Yonkers typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Yonkers?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Yonkers 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 245 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Yonkers?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Yonkers sees about 245 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 25, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Nov 11, about 210 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Yonkers?
The federal record around Yonkers is a meaningful one — 5,124 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,552), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Yonkers?
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 Yonkers's scale — its 7b band and its 245-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Yonkers'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 Yonkers’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Yonkers's own scale — its own ~245-day season between 28°F freezes, the 11,524 acres it covers and 5,124 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Yonkers's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Yonkers's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 25 and the ~245-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 5,124 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Yonkers, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Yonkers's boundary and the 11,524 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~245-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Yonkers's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Yonkerslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Yonkers's 11,524 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 Yonkers's 11,524 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Yonkers you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 11,524 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Yonkers-wide figureread your own land →
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