Cherryville, North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cherryville, 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 Cherryville 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 Cherryville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cherryville — the short answer
Cherryville, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 242 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~242
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 4K 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 8a is Cherryville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cherryville's 242-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cherryville
Each reading below is measured for Cherryville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCherryville runs about 242 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
MeasuredCherryville sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Cherryville is in
Cherryville sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cherryville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gaston County.
What Grows in Cherryville
Every plant below cleared Cherryville's own zone 8a and its 242-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cherryville?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 14 — 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 Cherryville
Survey cells within 31 miles of Cherryville checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 32 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cherryville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cherryville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BEAM CONSTRUCTION COUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- TOBACCO HOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- BEAM REST HOME, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- CHERRYVILLE FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- LEE WEATHERLY GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- MAIN STREET AMOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- JIM'SUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- BEAM'S, INC. FIRESTONEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- BEAM CONSTRUCTION CO. INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- SOUTHERN BELL-GLC 25790Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- CHERRYVILLE ELECTRIC DEPARTMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- DIXIE LUMBER CO., INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cherryville'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 Cherryville.
Total Sites
441
within ~10 miles of Cherryville
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cherryville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cherryville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cherryville, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Cherryville — Underground Storage Tanks (321 sites) and PFAS (4 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Cherryville
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 Cherryville average
Your land is one point inside Cherryville
Everything above resolves to Cherryville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Cherryville Average
Cherryville Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Cherryville
- ●One soil character for all of Cherryville
- ●Frost dates read at Cherryville's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cherryville's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cherryville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cherryville, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cherryville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cherryville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cherryville average
How we know this about Cherryville
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 Cherryville’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 Cherryville
When does frost risk typically end in Cherryville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cherryville typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Cherryville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cherryville typically arrives around Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 31, so the watching starts about Oct 15 — about 242 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cherryville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cherryville sees about 242 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Oct 31, about 207 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cherryville?
The federal record around Cherryville is a meaningful one — 441 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (321), 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 Cherryville?
From about Oct 15 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 14 (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 14. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cherryville's scale — its 8a band and its 242-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cherryville'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 Cherryville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cherryville's own scale — its own ~242-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,715 acres it covers and 441 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cherryville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cherryville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 14 and the ~242-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 441 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cherryville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cherryville's boundary and the 3,715 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~242-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cherryville's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Cherryville checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cherryville's 3,715 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Gaston County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Gaston County
- The growing challenges every North Carolina grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom North Carolina
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Gaston County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cherryville's 3,715 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cherryville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,715 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 Cherryville-wide figureread your own land →
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