Granville County, in North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Granville County lies within the Piedmont — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Granville County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Granville County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Granville County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Granville County — the short answer
Granville County, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 244 days between hard freezes, across 340K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~244
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 340K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Granville County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Granville County's 244-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Granville County
Across a year, Granville County accumulates about 4,109 growing degree days above 50°F, about 281 fewer than the middle North Carolina county — ahead of 30 of North Carolina’s 100 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 1,924 hours below 45°F, 161 more than the North Carolina middle of 1,763. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Granville County
Across Granville County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Georgeville, Cecil, and Creedmoor are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–6.0, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
54%
Hydric soils
4%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Granville County
The USDA soil survey maps 64% of Granville County as well drained — but another 35% drains differently: 28% moderately well drained, 7% somewhat poorly drained.
Georgeville is the most extensive named soil at 18% of mapped acres, then Cecil (13%) and Creedmoor (11%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Granville County
Each reading below is measured for Granville County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Granville County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Granville County runs about pH 5.0–6.0, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredGranville County runs about 244 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
MeasuredGranville County 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 Granville County is in
Granville County sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Granville County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Granville County's own USDA zone 8a and its own 244-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile.
Is it too late to plant in Granville County?
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 16 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Granville County
Spotted lanternfly documented 31 miles from Granville County, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Granville County
USGS estimates 4,046 lb of Glyphosate on Granville County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (3,181 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (1,690 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Granville County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Granville County — 307 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Granville County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Granville County
Closest first, across Granville County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CERTAINTEED GLASS MATBrownfields · 2.1 mi
- MIKE'SUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- CERTAINTEED CORP ASPHALTToxics Release Inventory · 2.4 mi
- NC DOT - OXFORD (DIV FIVE)Underground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- NC DOT DIV 5 OXFORDBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- OXFORD TOBACCO RESEARCH STATIBrownfields · 2.6 mi
- J. P. TAYLOR COMPANY, LLCToxics Release Inventory · 2.6 mi
- UPL SERVICES LLC (OXFORD)Brownfields · 2.6 mi
- ROSE MART 15Underground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- PLASTIC INGENUITYBrownfields · 2.6 mi
- BRIDGESTONE-BANDAG LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- IDEAL FASTENER CORPORATIONToxics Release Inventory · 2.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Granville County'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 Granville County.
Sources Checked
across Granville County
Severity Distribution
across Granville County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Granville County, two things run higher than the national average across Granville County — Toxics Release Inventory (23 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (196 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Granville County
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 Granville County average
Your land is one point inside Granville County
Everything above resolves to Granville County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 340K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Granville County Average
Granville County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Granville County
- ●One soil character for all of Granville County
- ●Frost dates read at Granville County's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Granville County's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Granville County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Granville County, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Granville County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Granville County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Granville County average
How we know this about Granville County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Granville County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Granville County
When does frost risk typically end in Granville County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Granville County 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.
How long is the growing season in Granville County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Granville County sees about 244 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 2, about 209 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Granville County?
The federal record around Granville County is a meaningful one — 307 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (196), the nearest Brownfields record about 2.1 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.
Everything above is measured at Granville County's scale — its 8a band and its 244-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Granville County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads North Carolina's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Granville County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Granville County's own scale — its own ~244-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 307 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Granville County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Granville County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~244-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Granville CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 307 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 2.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Granville County's boundary and the 340,474 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~244-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Granville County sitting wholly inside the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Granville County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Granville County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every North Carolina grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom North Carolina
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Granville County — the ~244 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Granville County's 340,474 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 307 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Granville Countyread your own land →