Cornwells Heights, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
These conditions suit cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cornwells Heights, 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 Cornwells Heights 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 Cornwells Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cornwells Heights — the short answer
Cornwells Heights, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7b, about 242 days between hard freezes, across 304 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~242
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 304 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 Cornwells Heights's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cornwells Heights's 242-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cornwells Heights
Each reading below is measured for Cornwells Heights itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCornwells Heights runs about 242 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
MeasuredCornwells Heights 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 Cornwells Heights is in
Cornwells Heights sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cornwells Heights's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Bucks County is mostly Northern Piedmont. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Cornwells Heights
Every plant below cleared Cornwells Heights's own zone 7b and its 242-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cornwells Heights?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 20 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Cornwells Heights
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Cornwells Heights, first recorded 2017. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cornwells Heights
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cornwells Heights. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ROADWAY EXPRESS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- RICHMAN AUTO REPAIRUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- EXXON RS 2 0458Underground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- BK 488Nitrate · 1000 ft
- AT&T ANDALUSIA FACUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- SISTERS OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- HOLY GHOST PREPARATORY SCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- QUALEX INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- NORTHEASTERN PRECISION PRODUCTBrownfields · 2000 ft
- BOB NOLANS AUTO SVCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- TOSCO MOBIL 2634939Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- BRITE CLEANUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cornwells Heights'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 Cornwells Heights.
Total Sites
4,173
within ~10 miles of Cornwells Heights
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
56 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cornwells Heights
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cornwells Heights
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cornwells Heights, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 56 sites within ~10 miles of Cornwells Heights. 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 Cornwells Heights
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 Cornwells Heights average
Your land is one point inside Cornwells Heights
Everything above resolves to Cornwells Heights as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 304 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 Cornwells Heights Average
Cornwells Heights Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Cornwells Heights
- ●One soil character for all of Cornwells Heights
- ●Frost dates read at Cornwells Heights's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cornwells Heights's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cornwells Heights
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cornwells Heights, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cornwells Heights averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cornwells Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cornwells Heights average
How we know this about Cornwells Heights
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 Cornwells Heights’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 Cornwells Heights
When does frost risk typically end in Cornwells Heights?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cornwells Heights typically lands around Mar 23, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Cornwells Heights?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cornwells Heights typically arrives around Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 6, so the watching starts about Oct 21 — about 242 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cornwells Heights?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cornwells Heights sees about 242 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Nov 6, about 207 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cornwells Heights?
The federal record around Cornwells Heights runs heavier than most — 4,173 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,063), 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 Cornwells Heights?
From about Oct 21 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cornwells Heights's scale — its 7b band and its 242-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cornwells Heights'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 Cornwells Heights’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cornwells Heights's own scale — its own ~242-day season between 28°F freezes, the 304 acres it covers and 4,173 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cornwells Heights's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cornwells Heights's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 23 and Nov 20 and the ~242-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,173 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cornwells Heights, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cornwells Heights's boundary and the 304 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~242-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Cornwells Heights sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Cornwells Heightslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cornwells Heights's 304 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bucks County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bucks 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 Bucks County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cornwells Heights's 304 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cornwells Heights you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 304 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 Cornwells Heights-wide figureread your own land →
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