Cliffside, North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cliffside, 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 Cliffside 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 Cliffside — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cliffside — the short answer
Cliffside, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 236 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~236
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Cliffside's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cliffside's 236-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cliffside
Each reading below is measured for Cliffside itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCliffside runs about 236 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
MeasuredCliffside 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 Cliffside is in
Cliffside sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cliffside's own centroid rather than borrowed from Rutherford County.
What Grows in Cliffside
Every plant below cleared Cliffside's own zone 8a and its 236-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cliffside?
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 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — 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 Cliffside
Survey cells within 31 miles of Cliffside checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 52 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cliffside
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cliffside. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CLIFFSIDE SANITARY DISTRICT WWTPBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- CLIFFSIDE SANITARY DISTRICT WWTPToxics Release Inventory · 0.8 mi
- CONE MILLS CLIFFSIDE NO 2Brownfields · 1.0 mi
- FOREST CITY, TOWN OFPFAS · 1.0 mi
- COUNTRY PLAZAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- J. D. WELLS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- HAYNES PUMPING STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- CONE MILLS HAYNES PLT. PUMP STA.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- CONE MILLS-CLIFFSIDE PLANT IUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- FAIRVIEW GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- DUKE POWER COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- ROGER LEE WESTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cliffside'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 Cliffside.
Total Sites
293
within ~10 miles of Cliffside
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cliffside
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cliffside
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cliffside, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Cliffside — PFAS (6 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (22 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Cliffside
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 Cliffside average
Your land is one point inside Cliffside
Everything above resolves to Cliffside as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Cliffside Average
Cliffside Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Cliffside
- ●One soil character for all of Cliffside
- ●Frost dates read at Cliffside's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cliffside's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cliffside
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cliffside, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cliffside averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cliffside — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cliffside average
How we know this about Cliffside
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 Cliffside’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 Cliffside
When does frost risk typically end in Cliffside?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cliffside typically lands around Mar 20, 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 10.
When is the first frost in Cliffside?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cliffside typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 236 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cliffside?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cliffside sees about 236 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Oct 28, about 201 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cliffside?
The federal record around Cliffside is a meaningful one — 293 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (209), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.8 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 Cliffside?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cliffside's scale — its 8a band and its 236-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cliffside'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 Cliffside’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cliffside's own scale — its own ~236-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,489 acres it covers and 293 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cliffside's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cliffside's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 20 and Nov 11 and the ~236-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 293 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cliffside, the closest Brownfields record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cliffside's boundary and the 1,489 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~236-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cliffside's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Cliffside 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 Cliffside's 1,489 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Rutherford County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Rutherford 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 Rutherford County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cliffside's 1,489 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cliffside you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,489 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.8 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 Cliffside-wide figureread your own land →
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