Pleasant Garden, North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
On paper, cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Pleasant Garden, 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 Pleasant Garden 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 Pleasant Garden — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Pleasant Garden — the short answer
Pleasant Garden, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 246 days between hard freezes, across 10K 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 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~246
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 10K 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 Pleasant Garden's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pleasant Garden's 246-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pleasant Garden
Each reading below is measured for Pleasant Garden itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPleasant Garden runs about 246 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
MeasuredPleasant Garden 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 Pleasant Garden is in
Pleasant Garden sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pleasant Garden's own centroid rather than borrowed from Guilford County.
What Grows in Pleasant Garden
Every plant below cleared Pleasant Garden's own zone 8a and its 246-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pleasant Garden?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 16 — 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 Pleasant Garden
Spotted lanternfly documented 14 miles from Pleasant Garden, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pleasant Garden
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pleasant Garden. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BOREN CLAY PRODUCTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- HUFF'S PLEASANT GARDENUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- HOOKER FURNITURE CORPORATIONToxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
- HAGAN STONE PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- PLEASANT GARDEN EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- RAYS BODY SHOPBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- BLAKLEY AUTOMOTIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- PLEASANT GARDEN PCESuperfund · 1.2 mi
- PLEASANT GDN CURB MKTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- HANSON BRICK PLEASANT GARDEN PLANTBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- HANSON BRICK PLEASANT GARDEN PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 1.3 mi
- BOREN CLAY PRODUCTS COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pleasant Garden'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 Pleasant Garden.
Total Sites
1,046
within ~10 miles of Pleasant Garden
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
11 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pleasant Garden
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pleasant Garden
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pleasant Garden, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 652 sites within ~10 miles of Pleasant Garden. 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 Pleasant Garden
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 Pleasant Garden average
Your land is one point inside Pleasant Garden
Everything above resolves to Pleasant Garden as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 10K 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 Pleasant Garden Average
Pleasant Garden Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Pleasant Garden
- ●One soil character for all of Pleasant Garden
- ●Frost dates read at Pleasant Garden's scale: Mar 15 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pleasant Garden's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pleasant Garden
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pleasant Garden, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pleasant Garden averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pleasant Garden — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pleasant Garden average
How we know this about Pleasant Garden
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 Pleasant Garden’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 Pleasant Garden
When does frost risk typically end in Pleasant Garden?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pleasant Garden 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 Pleasant Garden?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pleasant Garden typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 246 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pleasant Garden?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pleasant Garden sees about 246 frost-free days — roughly Mar 15 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 5 to Nov 2, about 211 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pleasant Garden?
The federal record around Pleasant Garden is a meaningful one — 1,046 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (652), 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Pleasant Garden?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pleasant Garden's scale — its 8a band and its 246-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pleasant Garden'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 Pleasant Garden’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pleasant Garden's own scale — its own ~246-day season between 28°F freezes, the 9,624 acres it covers and 1,046 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pleasant Garden's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pleasant Garden's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 15 and Nov 16 and the ~246-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,046 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pleasant Garden, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pleasant Garden's boundary and the 9,624 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~246-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pleasant Garden's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Pleasant Gardenlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Pleasant Garden's 9,624 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Guilford County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Guilford 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 Guilford County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pleasant Garden's 9,624 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pleasant Garden you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 9,624 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Pleasant Garden-wide figureread your own land →
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