Nichols Hills, Oklahoma, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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 Nichols Hills, 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 Nichols Hills 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 Nichols Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Nichols Hills — the short answer
Nichols Hills, Oklahoma: USDA zone 7b, about 247 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 14
- 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
- ~247
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 1K 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 Nichols Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Nichols Hills's 247-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Nichols Hills
Each reading below is measured for Nichols Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNichols Hills runs about 247 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
MeasuredNichols Hills 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 Nichols Hills is in
Nichols Hills sits in the Central Great Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Nichols Hills's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Oklahoma County is mostly Cross Timbers. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Nichols Hills
Every plant below cleared Nichols Hills's own zone 7b and its 247-day season. Each card opens that plant's Oklahoma profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Nichols Hills?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 14 (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. 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.
What's on the federal record near Nichols Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Nichols Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 12N-03W-05 CAB 1Nitrate · 1400 ft
- 12N-03W-05 CAB 2Nitrate · 1400 ft
- 12N-03W-06 ADD 1Nitrate · 1900 ft
- 13N-03W-32 DCD 1Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- 12N-03W-05 DCA 1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- Karen FoxUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- PRO CLNR INC / 7020 N WESTERN PRO CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- Kwik Run 8121Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- 7 Eleven #12Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Onan #8Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Oklahoma City Golf & Country ClUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Swbt - R62140 Victor CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Nichols Hills'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 Nichols Hills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Nichols Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Nichols Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Nichols Hills, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 1,865 sites within ~10 miles of Nichols Hills. 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 Nichols Hills
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 Nichols Hills average
Your land is one point inside Nichols Hills
Everything above resolves to Nichols Hills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Nichols Hills Average
Nichols Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Nichols Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Nichols Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Nichols Hills's scale: Mar 14 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Nichols Hills's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Nichols Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Nichols Hills, Oklahoma — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Nichols Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Nichols Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Nichols Hills average
How we know this about Nichols Hills
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 Nichols Hills’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 Nichols Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Nichols Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Nichols Hills typically lands around Mar 14, 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 4.
When is the first frost in Nichols Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Nichols Hills 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 247 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Nichols Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Nichols Hills sees about 247 frost-free days — roughly Mar 14 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 4 to Nov 2, about 212 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Nichols Hills?
The federal record around Nichols Hills runs heavier than most — 2,915 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,865), the nearest Nitrate 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 Nichols Hills?
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 Nichols Hills's scale — its 7b band and its 247-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Nichols Hills'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 Nichols Hills’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Nichols Hills's own scale — its own ~247-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,262 acres it covers and 2,915 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Nichols Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Nichols Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 14 and Nov 16 and the ~247-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,915 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Nichols Hills, the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Nichols Hills's boundary and the 1,262 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~247-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Nichols Hills sits in the Central Great Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Nichols Hills's 1,262 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Oklahoma County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Oklahoma County
- The growing challenges every Oklahoma grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Oklahoma
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Oklahoma County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Nichols Hills's 1,262 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Nichols Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,262 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Nichols Hills-wide figureread your own land →
More in Oklahoma
Wider growing context
What grows across OklahomaNichols Hills sits outside our named growing regions, so Oklahoma as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides