Colony Park, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Colony Park, 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 Colony Park 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 Colony Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Colony Park — the short answer
Colony Park, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 387 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~219
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 387 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 7a is Colony Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Colony Park's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Colony Park
Each reading below is measured for Colony Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredColony Park runs about 219 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
MeasuredColony Park sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Colony Park is in
Colony Park sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Colony Park's own centroid rather than borrowed from Berks County.
What Grows in Colony Park
Every plant below cleared Colony Park's own zone 7a and its 219-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Colony Park?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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 Colony Park
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Colony Park, first recorded 2017. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Colony Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Colony Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BERKS ORAL SURGERYBrownfields · 2200 ft
- WAWA FOOD MARKET 147Brownfields · 2200 ft
- BE 836Nitrate · 2300 ft
- WALMART SUPERCENTER #1670Brownfields · 2300 ft
- SEARS 1484Brownfields · 2400 ft
- SPRING RIDGE ONE MERIDIAN BLVDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- WAWA 147Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- SHILLINGTON MUNI AUTHPFAS · 0.6 mi
- WYOMISSING BORO WATER SYSTEMPFAS · 0.6 mi
- READING HOSP AT SPRING RIDGEBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- HOME DEPOT STORE #4110Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- ASPEN DENTALBrownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Colony Park'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 Colony Park.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Colony Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Colony Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Colony Park, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 96 sites within ~10 miles of Colony Park. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Colony Park
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 Colony Park average
Your land is one point inside Colony Park
Everything above resolves to Colony Park as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 387 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 Colony Park Average
Colony Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Colony Park
- ●One soil character for all of Colony Park
- ●Frost dates read at Colony Park's scale: Apr 2 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Colony Park's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Colony Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Colony Park, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Colony Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Colony Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Colony Park average
How we know this about Colony Park
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 Colony Park’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 Colony Park
When does frost risk typically end in Colony Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Colony Park typically lands around Apr 2, 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 23.
When is the first frost in Colony Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Colony Park typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 219 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Colony Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Colony Park sees about 219 frost-free days — roughly Apr 2 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 23 to Oct 24, about 184 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Colony Park?
The federal record around Colony Park runs heavier than most — 1,493 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (811), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.4 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 Colony Park?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Colony Park's scale — its 7a band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Colony Park'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 Colony Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Colony Park's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 387 acres it covers and 1,493 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Colony Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Colony Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 2 and Nov 7 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,493 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Colony Park, the closest Brownfields record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Colony Park's boundary and the 387 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Colony Park's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Colony Parklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Colony Park's 387 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Berks County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Berks 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 Berks County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Colony Park's 387 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Colony Park you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 387 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.4 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 Colony Park-wide figureread your own land →
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