Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bala Cynwyd, 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 Bala Cynwyd 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 Bala Cynwyd — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bala Cynwyd — the short answer
Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7b, about 246 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~246
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town 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 Bala Cynwyd's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bala Cynwyd's 246-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Your town runs its own season
Bala Cynwyd's own 30-year record measures about 246 days between 28°F killing freezes — 31 days longer than Montgomery County's ~215. Both are measured records, not estimates.
That gap is the whole reason a county average can mislead here. Plant against Bala Cynwyd's ~246-day season rather than the county figure — and the sun, slope and cold-air drainage on your specific lot move it again.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record. Both figures are measured records — this town’s own and its county’s. A town with no record of its own is absent here rather than estimated.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bala Cynwyd
Each reading below is measured for Bala Cynwyd itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBala Cynwyd 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
MeasuredBala Cynwyd 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 Bala Cynwyd is in
Bala Cynwyd sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bala Cynwyd's own centroid rather than borrowed from Montgomery County.
What Grows in Bala Cynwyd
Every plant below cleared Bala Cynwyd's own zone 7b and its 246-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bala Cynwyd?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 21 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Bala Cynwyd
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Bala Cynwyd, first recorded 2017. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bala Cynwyd
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bala Cynwyd. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CYNWYD PUMP STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- MARY J DREXEL HOMEUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- WEST LAUREL HILL CEMETERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- EDW A CARROLL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- EXXON 2 0454Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- SUNOCO SVC STABrownfields · 1600 ft
- SUNOCO 0013 0476Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- BALA CLNR SVCBrownfields · 2500 ft
- MINI OF THE MAIN LINEBrownfields · 2500 ft
- RIGHTERS FERRY PUMP STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- DON ROSEN BMWUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- WHITESITE BLDGUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bala Cynwyd'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 Bala Cynwyd.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bala Cynwyd
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bala Cynwyd
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bala Cynwyd, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 100 sites within ~10 miles of Bala Cynwyd. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Bala Cynwyd
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 Bala Cynwyd average
Your land is one point inside Bala Cynwyd
Everything above resolves to Bala Cynwyd as a whole — and this is a town whose own 30-year record already runs a season its county’s does not. Your parcel sits at one point inside even that. 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 Bala Cynwyd Average
Bala Cynwyd Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Bala Cynwyd
- ●One soil character for all of Bala Cynwyd
- ●Frost dates read at Bala Cynwyd's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bala Cynwyd's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bala Cynwyd
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bala Cynwyd averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bala Cynwyd — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bala Cynwyd average
How we know this about Bala Cynwyd
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 Bala Cynwyd’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 Bala Cynwyd
When does frost risk typically end in Bala Cynwyd?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bala Cynwyd typically lands around Mar 20, 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 10.
When is the first frost in Bala Cynwyd?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bala Cynwyd typically arrives around Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 7, so the watching starts about Oct 22 — about 246 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bala Cynwyd?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bala Cynwyd sees about 246 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Nov 7, about 211 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bala Cynwyd?
The federal record around Bala Cynwyd runs heavier than most — 5,888 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (3,012), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Bala Cynwyd?
From about Oct 22 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 21 (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 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bala Cynwyd's scale — its 7b band and its 246-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bala Cynwyd'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 Bala Cynwyd’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bala Cynwyd's own scale — its own ~246-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,465 acres it covers and 5,888 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bala Cynwyd's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bala Cynwyd's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 20 and Nov 21 and the ~246-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 5,888 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bala Cynwyd, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bala Cynwyd's boundary and the 1,465 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~246-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bala Cynwyd's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Bala Cynwydlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bala Cynwyd's 1,465 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Montgomery County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Montgomery County
- The growing challenges every Pennsylvania grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Pennsylvania
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Montgomery County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bala Cynwyd's 1,465 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bala Cynwyd you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,465 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Bala Cynwyd-wide figureread your own land →
More in Pennsylvania
Wider growing context
What grows across PennsylvaniaBala Cynwyd sits outside our named growing regions, so Pennsylvania as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides