Collingdale, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Collingdale, 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 Collingdale 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 Collingdale — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Collingdale — the short answer
Collingdale, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7b, about 248 days between hard freezes, across 556 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 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~248
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 556 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 Collingdale's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Collingdale's 248-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Collingdale
Each reading below is measured for Collingdale itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCollingdale runs about 248 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
MeasuredCollingdale 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 Collingdale is in
Collingdale sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Collingdale's own centroid rather than borrowed from Delaware County.
What Grows in Collingdale
Every plant below cleared Collingdale's own zone 7b and its 248-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Collingdale?
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 23 — 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.
Documented around Collingdale
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Collingdale, first recorded 2017. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Collingdale
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Collingdale. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HARRIS ELEM SCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- OLLIS BROSUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- COLLINGDALE COMM CTRUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- WAWA 8108Brownfields · 1600 ft
- ALESSI MFGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- HERB AUTO SVCBrownfields · 2000 ft
- FERGUSON MACANNUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- SUNOCO SVC STABrownfields · 2000 ft
- COLLINGDALE AUTO BODY & REPAIRS/COLLINGDALEBrownfields · 2000 ft
- ALDAN GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- FORMER SUNOCO 0004 6862Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- SUNOCO 0363 9606Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Collingdale'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 Collingdale.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Collingdale
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Collingdale
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Collingdale, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 87 sites within ~10 miles of Collingdale. 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.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Collingdale
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 Collingdale average
Your land is one point inside Collingdale
Everything above resolves to Collingdale as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 556 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 Collingdale Average
Collingdale Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Collingdale
- ●One soil character for all of Collingdale
- ●Frost dates read at Collingdale's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Collingdale's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Collingdale
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Collingdale, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Collingdale averages can't show:
We read public map data around Collingdale — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Collingdale average
How we know this about Collingdale
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 Collingdale’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 Collingdale
When does frost risk typically end in Collingdale?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Collingdale 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 Collingdale?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Collingdale typically arrives around Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 9, so the watching starts about Oct 24 — about 248 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Collingdale?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Collingdale sees about 248 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Nov 9, about 213 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Collingdale?
The federal record around Collingdale runs heavier than most — 4,812 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,240), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Collingdale?
From about Oct 24 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 23 (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 23. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Collingdale's scale — its 7b band and its 248-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Collingdale'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 Collingdale’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Collingdale's own scale — its own ~248-day season between 28°F freezes, the 556 acres it covers and 4,812 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Collingdale's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Collingdale's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 20 and Nov 23 and the ~248-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,812 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Collingdale, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Collingdale's boundary and the 556 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~248-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Collingdale's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Collingdalelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Collingdale's 556 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Delaware County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Delaware 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 Delaware County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Collingdale's 556 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Collingdale you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 556 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Collingdale-wide figureread your own land →
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