Southern Pines, 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.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Southern Pines, 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 Southern Pines 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 Southern Pines — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Southern Pines — the short answer
Southern Pines, North Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 243 days between hard freezes, across 12K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~243
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 12K 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 Southern Pines's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Southern Pines's 243-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Southern Pines
Each reading below is measured for Southern Pines itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSouthern Pines runs about 243 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
MeasuredSouthern Pines 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 Southern Pines is in
Southern Pines sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Southern Pines's own centroid rather than borrowed from Moore County.
What Grows in Southern Pines
Every plant below cleared Southern Pines's own zone 8a and its 243-day season. Each card opens that plant's North Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Southern Pines?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 15 — 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 Southern Pines
Survey cells within 31 miles of Southern Pines checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 62 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Southern Pines
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Southern Pines. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PINE NEEDLES RESORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- MID PINES RESORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- M & S MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- INGERSOLL - RAND TOOL AND HOIST DIVISIONToxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
- MCWPCP-SOUTHERN PINES PUMP STAT.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- MOORE COUNTY AIRPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- FLETCHER INDUSTRIES INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- SANDHILL OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- THE ARO CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- MCDONALD BROTHERS, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- SOUTHERN PINES MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- E-Z SHOP 27Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Southern Pines'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 Southern Pines.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Southern Pines
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Southern Pines
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Southern Pines, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Southern Pines — Superfund (8 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Southern Pines
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 Southern Pines average
Your land is one point inside Southern Pines
Everything above resolves to Southern Pines as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 12K 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 Southern Pines Average
Southern Pines Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Southern Pines
- ●One soil character for all of Southern Pines
- ●Frost dates read at Southern Pines's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Southern Pines's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Southern Pines
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Southern Pines, North Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Southern Pines averages can't show:
We read public map data around Southern Pines — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Southern Pines average
How we know this about Southern Pines
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 Southern Pines’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 Southern Pines
When does frost risk typically end in Southern Pines?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Southern Pines typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Southern Pines?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Southern Pines typically arrives around Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 1, so the watching starts about Oct 16 — about 243 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Southern Pines?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Southern Pines sees about 243 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 1, about 208 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Southern Pines?
The federal record around Southern Pines runs heavier than most — 288 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (183), 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 Southern Pines?
From about Oct 16 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 15 (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 15. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Southern Pines's scale — its 8a band and its 243-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Southern Pines'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 Southern Pines’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Southern Pines's own scale — its own ~243-day season between 28°F freezes, the 11,754 acres it covers and 288 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Southern Pines's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Southern Pines's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 15 and the ~243-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 288 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Southern Pines, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Southern Pines's boundary and the 11,754 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~243-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Southern Pines's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Southern Pines 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 Southern Pines's 11,754 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Moore County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Moore 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 Moore County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Southern Pines's 11,754 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Southern Pines you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 11,754 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 Southern Pines-wide figureread your own land →
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