Dallas, North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 Dallas, 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 Dallas 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 Dallas — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Dallas — the short answer
Dallas, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 247 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~247
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Dallas's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dallas's 247-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dallas
Each reading below is measured for Dallas itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDallas runs about 247 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
MeasuredDallas 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 Dallas is in
Dallas sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Dallas's own centroid rather than borrowed from Gaston County.
What Grows in Dallas
Every plant below cleared Dallas's own zone 8a and its 247-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dallas?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 15 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 17 — 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 Dallas
Spotted lanternfly documented 24 miles from Dallas, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Dallas
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dallas. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- COUNTRY MARKET #7/L286Underground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- INGLES I-MARKET 746Underground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- LONG BROS. ROOFING/WATERPROOFINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- C. G. TATE CONST. CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- UNIVERSAL MACHINE CO., INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- B & B 76 SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- WALGREENS #10608Brownfields · 2200 ft
- TOWN OF DALLAS (TOWN HALL)Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- H & H UPHOLSTERY COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- WORLD 2Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- MR. Z'S CONVENIENCE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- RHYNE MILLING & OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dallas'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 Dallas.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dallas
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dallas
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dallas, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Dallas — Superfund (18 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (76 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Dallas
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 Dallas average
Your land is one point inside Dallas
Everything above resolves to Dallas as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Dallas Average
Dallas Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Dallas
- ●One soil character for all of Dallas
- ●Frost dates read at Dallas's scale: Mar 15 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dallas's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dallas
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dallas, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dallas averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dallas — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dallas average
How we know this about Dallas
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 Dallas’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 Dallas
When does frost risk typically end in Dallas?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dallas typically lands around Mar 15, 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 5.
When is the first frost in Dallas?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dallas typically arrives around Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 3, so the watching starts about Oct 18 — about 247 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dallas?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dallas sees about 247 frost-free days — roughly Mar 15 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 5 to Nov 3, about 212 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dallas?
The federal record around Dallas runs heavier than most — 927 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (602), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Dallas?
From about Oct 18 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 17 (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 17. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dallas's scale — its 8a band and its 247-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dallas'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 Dallas’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Dallas's own scale — its own ~247-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,967 acres it covers and 927 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dallas's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dallas's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 15 and Nov 17 and the ~247-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 927 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dallas, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dallas's boundary and the 1,967 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~247-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dallas's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Dallaslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Dallas's 1,967 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 Dallas's 1,967 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dallas you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,967 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Dallas-wide figureread your own land →
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