Person County, in North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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.
Person 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
Person County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Person 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 Person County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Person County — the short answer
Person County, North Carolina: USDA zone 7b, about 236 days between hard freezes, across 251K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~236
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 251K 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 7b is Person County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Person County's 236-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Person County
Across a year, Person County accumulates about 4,041 growing degree days above 50°F, about 349 fewer than the middle North Carolina county — ahead of 25 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 1,946 hours below 45°F, 183 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 Person County
Across Person County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Georgeville, Lignum, and Siloam are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.1–6.0, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
38%
Hydric soils
3%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Person County
The USDA soil survey maps 68% of Person County as well drained — but another 28% drains differently: 22% moderately well drained, 6% somewhat poorly drained.
Georgeville is the most extensive named soil at 17% of mapped acres, then Lignum (10%) and Siloam (8%).
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 Person County
Each reading below is measured for Person 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 Person 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 Person County runs about pH 5.1–6.0, 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
MeasuredPerson County 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
MeasuredPerson County 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 Person County is in
Person 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 Person County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Person County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 236-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 Person County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 13 — 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 Person County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Person County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 39 miles off. What to watch for.
What gets applied to farmland in Person County
USGS estimates 7,610 lb of Glyphosate on Person County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (3,984 lb) and Dicamba (2,626 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 Person County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Person County — 275 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 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 Person 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 Person County
Closest first, across Person County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FOOD MART 1Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- C W CHAMBERS JRUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- TOM`S AUTO SUPPLYBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- CITY OF ROXBOROUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- COLONY CONVIENCE MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CONVENIENCE CORNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- C MART 463Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- PANTRY 3187 (ETNA 251)Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- FIBREBOARD TECHNOLOGY CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- COUNTRY CORNER STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- WADE'SUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Person 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 Person County.
Sources Checked
across Person County
Severity Distribution
across Person County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Person County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 178 sites across Person County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Person 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 Person County average
Your land is one point inside Person County
Everything above resolves to Person County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 251K 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 Person County Average
Person County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Person County
- ●One soil character for all of Person County
- ●Frost dates read at Person County's scale: Mar 22 to Nov 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Person County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Person County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Person County, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Person County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Person County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Person County average
How we know this about Person 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 Person County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Person County
When does frost risk typically end in Person County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Person County typically lands around Mar 22, 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 12.
How long is the growing season in Person County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Person County sees about 236 frost-free days — roughly Mar 22 through Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 12 to Oct 30, about 201 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Person County?
The federal record around Person County is a meaningful one — 275 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (178), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Person County's scale — its 7b band and its 236-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Person 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 Person County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Person County's own scale — its own ~236-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 275 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Person County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Person County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~236-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Person CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 275 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Person County's boundary and the 251,097 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~236-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Person County sitting wholly inside the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Person 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 Person County — the ~236 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 Person County's 251,097 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 275 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 Person Countyread your own land →