Monroe, North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Monroe, 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 Monroe 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 Monroe — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Monroe — the short answer
Monroe, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 256 days between hard freezes, across 21K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 11
- 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
- ~256
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 21K 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 Monroe's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Monroe's 256-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Monroe
Each reading below is measured for Monroe itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMonroe runs about 256 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
MeasuredMonroe 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 Monroe is in
Monroe sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Monroe's own centroid rather than borrowed from Union County.
What Grows in Monroe
Every plant below cleared Monroe's own zone 8a and its 256-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Monroe?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 11 (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. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Monroe
Survey cells within 31 miles of Monroe checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 37 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Monroe
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Monroe. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SUN CLEANERBrownfields · 1400 ft
- CONSOLIDATED METCO INCBrownfields · 1600 ft
- CONSOLIDATED METCO INCToxics Release Inventory · 1600 ft
- FAST FAREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- STOUT ENTERPRISES-OPERATIONS CTRUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- BELK 001Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- STEGALL BUILDER MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- THAT CLEANING PLACE - DCBrownfields · 1900 ft
- BP 1Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- WALGREENS #2700Brownfields · 2100 ft
- C & C SERVICESUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- SAMS MART 85 / 769Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Monroe'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 Monroe.
Total Sites
558
within ~10 miles of Monroe
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
8 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Monroe
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Monroe
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Monroe, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Monroe — Toxics Release Inventory (44 sites) and Superfund (8 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Monroe
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 Monroe average
Your land is one point inside Monroe
Everything above resolves to Monroe as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 21K 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 city 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 Monroe Average
Monroe Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Monroe
- ●One soil character for all of Monroe
- ●Frost dates read at Monroe's scale: Mar 11 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Monroe's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Monroe
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Monroe, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Monroe averages can't show:
We read public map data around Monroe — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Monroe average
How we know this about Monroe
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Monroe’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Monroe
When does frost risk typically end in Monroe?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Monroe typically lands around Mar 11, 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 1.
When is the first frost in Monroe?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Monroe 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 256 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Monroe?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Monroe sees about 256 frost-free days — roughly Mar 11 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 1 to Nov 8, about 221 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Monroe?
The federal record around Monroe runs heavier than most — 558 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (352), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 Monroe?
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 Monroe's scale — its 8a band and its 256-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Monroe'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 Monroe’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Monroe's own scale — its own ~256-day season between 28°F freezes, the 20,600 acres it covers and 558 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Monroe's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Monroe's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 11 and Nov 22 and the ~256-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 558 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Monroe, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Monroe's boundary and the 20,600 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~256-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Monroe's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Monroe 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 Monroe's 20,600 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 Monroe's 20,600 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Monroe you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 20,600 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 Monroe-wide figureread your own land →
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