Rockingham, North Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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 Rockingham, 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 Rockingham 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 Rockingham — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Rockingham — the short answer
Rockingham, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 253 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of city.
- 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 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~253
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 5K 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 Rockingham's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rockingham's 253-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Rockingham
Each reading below is measured for Rockingham itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRockingham runs about 253 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
MeasuredRockingham 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 Rockingham is in
Rockingham sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Rockingham's own centroid rather than borrowed from Richmond County.
What Grows in Rockingham
Every plant below cleared Rockingham's own zone 8a and its 253-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Rockingham?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. 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 20 — 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 Rockingham
Survey cells within 31 miles of Rockingham checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 71 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Rockingham
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Rockingham. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- J M LONG GRADING CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- PEPSI-COLA BOTTLING CO/LUMBERTONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- PUBLIC WORKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- RICHMOND CO LANDFILLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- FREDDY T. BROWNUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- MORROW'S WESTSIDEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- HAROLD P. SHAWUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- G.A. SULLIVANUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- PERDUE INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- RICHMOND CO FARM BUREAUUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- FLAV-O-RICH, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- DISTRICT HDQUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rockingham'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 Rockingham.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Rockingham
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Rockingham
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rockingham, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Rockingham — Superfund (5 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Rockingham
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 Rockingham average
Your land is one point inside Rockingham
Everything above resolves to Rockingham as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 Rockingham Average
Rockingham Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Rockingham
- ●One soil character for all of Rockingham
- ●Frost dates read at Rockingham's scale: Mar 12 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rockingham's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Rockingham
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rockingham, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rockingham averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rockingham — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rockingham average
How we know this about Rockingham
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 Rockingham’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 Rockingham
When does frost risk typically end in Rockingham?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rockingham 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 Rockingham?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Rockingham typically arrives around Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 6, so the watching starts about Oct 21 — about 253 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Rockingham?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rockingham sees about 253 frost-free days — roughly Mar 12 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 2 to Nov 6, about 218 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rockingham?
The federal record around Rockingham is a meaningful one — 313 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (223), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Rockingham?
From about Oct 21 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Rockingham's scale — its 8a band and its 253-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rockingham'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 Rockingham’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Rockingham's own scale — its own ~253-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,892 acres it covers and 313 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rockingham's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rockingham's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 12 and Nov 20 and the ~253-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 313 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Rockingham, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Rockingham's boundary and the 4,892 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~253-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Rockingham's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Rockingham 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 Rockingham's 4,892 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Richmond County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Richmond 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 Richmond County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Rockingham's 4,892 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Rockingham you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,892 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Rockingham-wide figureread your own land →
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