Lawndale, North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Lawndale, 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 Lawndale 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 Lawndale — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Lawndale — the short answer
Lawndale, North Carolina: USDA zone 7b, about 237 days between hard freezes, across 516 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- 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 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~237
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 516 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 7b is Lawndale's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lawndale's 237-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lawndale
Each reading below is measured for Lawndale itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLawndale runs about 237 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
MeasuredLawndale 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 Lawndale is in
Lawndale sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lawndale's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cleveland County.
What Grows in Lawndale
Every plant below cleared Lawndale's own zone 7b and its 237-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lawndale?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 12 — 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 Lawndale
Survey cells within 31 miles of Lawndale checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 42 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lawndale
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lawndale. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CLEVELAND MILLS COToxics Release Inventory · 300 ft
- PEELER'S AUTOMOTIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- LAWNDALE SERVICE STATION 0110152Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- POOLE'S METAL SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- LAWNDALE BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- JEFF'S MINI MART 25358Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- STAGECOACH HARDWAREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- PATTERSON OIL CO. OF KINGS MTN.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- HAYNES GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- ANNAS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- HEAVENER'S ALIGNMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- BURNS MINI MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lawndale'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 Lawndale.
Total Sites
344
within ~10 miles of Lawndale
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lawndale
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lawndale
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lawndale, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 259 sites within ~10 miles of Lawndale. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Lawndale
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 Lawndale average
Your land is one point inside Lawndale
Everything above resolves to Lawndale as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 516 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 Lawndale Average
Lawndale Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Lawndale
- ●One soil character for all of Lawndale
- ●Frost dates read at Lawndale's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lawndale's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lawndale
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lawndale, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lawndale averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lawndale — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lawndale average
How we know this about Lawndale
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 Lawndale’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 Lawndale
When does frost risk typically end in Lawndale?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lawndale 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 Lawndale?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lawndale typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 237 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lawndale?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lawndale sees about 237 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Oct 29, about 202 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lawndale?
The federal record around Lawndale is a meaningful one — 344 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (259), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory record under a tenth of a mile 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 Lawndale?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lawndale's scale — its 7b band and its 237-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lawndale'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 Lawndale’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lawndale's own scale — its own ~237-day season between 28°F freezes, the 516 acres it covers and 344 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lawndale's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lawndale's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 20 and Nov 12 and the ~237-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 344 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lawndale, the closest Toxics Release Inventory record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lawndale's boundary and the 516 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~237-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lawndale's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Lawndale 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 Lawndale's 516 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cleveland County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cleveland 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 Cleveland County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lawndale's 516 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lawndale you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 516 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record under a tenth of a mile 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 Lawndale-wide figureread your own land →
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