Lake Park, 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.
Growers here do well with cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Lake Park, 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 Lake Park 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 Lake Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lake Park — the short answer
Lake Park, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 255 days between hard freezes, across 470 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~255
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 470 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 Lake Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lake Park's 255-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lake Park
Each reading below is measured for Lake Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLake Park runs about 255 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
MeasuredLake Park 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 Lake Park is in
Lake Park sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lake Park's own centroid rather than borrowed from Union County.
What Grows in Lake Park
Every plant below cleared Lake Park's own zone 8a and its 255-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lake Park?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 22 — 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 Lake Park
Spotted lanternfly documented 30 miles from Lake Park, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lake Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lake Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WILLIE SIMPSON GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- WALMART SUPERCENTER #3700Brownfields · 0.9 mi
- Secrest MineMining · 1.1 mi
- 7-ELEVEN STORE 35596Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Ames MineMining · 1.1 mi
- FORMER GOOSE CREEK AUTOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Smart MineMining · 1.1 mi
- PURE MART 17Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- SALLY BEAUTY SUPPLY #3517Brownfields · 1.2 mi
- PRO-TOPS, INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 1.2 mi
- JIFFY MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- IDLEWILD JUNCTION SERVICE & GRO.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lake Park'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 Lake Park.
Total Sites
757
within ~10 miles of Lake Park
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
7 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lake Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lake Park
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in Lake Park
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 Lake Park average
Your land is one point inside Lake Park
Everything above resolves to Lake Park as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 470 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 Lake Park Average
Lake Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Lake Park
- ●One soil character for all of Lake Park
- ●Frost dates read at Lake Park's scale: Mar 12 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lake Park's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lake Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lake Park, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lake Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lake Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lake Park average
How we know this about Lake Park
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 Lake Park’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 Lake Park
When does frost risk typically end in Lake Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Park typically lands around Mar 12, 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 2.
When is the first frost in Lake Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Park typically arrives around Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 8, so the watching starts about Oct 23 — about 255 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lake Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lake Park sees about 255 frost-free days — roughly Mar 12 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 2 to Nov 8, about 220 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lake Park?
The federal record around Lake Park runs heavier than most — 757 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (438), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Lake Park?
From about Oct 23 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 22 (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 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lake Park's scale — its 8a band and its 255-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lake Park'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 Lake Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lake Park's own scale — its own ~255-day season between 28°F freezes, the 470 acres it covers and 757 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lake Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lake Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 12 and Nov 22 and the ~255-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 757 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lake Park, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lake Park's boundary and the 470 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~255-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lake Park's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Lake Parklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lake Park's 470 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Union County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Union 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 Union County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lake Park's 470 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lake Park you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 470 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Lake Park-wide figureread your own land →
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