Bucks County, in Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Bucks County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Bucks County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Bucks County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bucks County — the short answer
Bucks County, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 387K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 387K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Bucks County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bucks County's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Bucks County
Across a year, Bucks County accumulates about 3,088 growing degree days above 50°F, about 541 more than the middle Pennsylvania county — ahead of 56 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Bucks County
Across Bucks County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Abbottstown, Reaville, and Neshaminy are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.8–6.1, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
16%
Hydric soils
18%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Bucks County
The USDA soil survey maps 24% of Bucks County as well drained — but another 52% drains differently: 23% somewhat poorly drained, 13% moderately well drained.
Abbottstown is the most extensive named soil at 10% of mapped acres, then Reaville (7%) and Neshaminy (6%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Bucks County
Each reading below is measured for Bucks County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Bucks County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Bucks County runs about pH 5.8–6.1, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 18% of Bucks County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredBucks County runs about 220 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
The kind of country Bucks County is in
Bucks County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Northern Piedmont (88%) and Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain (8%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Bucks County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Bucks County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 220-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile.
Is it too late to plant in Bucks County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (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 Bucks County
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Bucks County, first recorded 2018. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle15 documented records
- monarch butterfly720 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Bucks County
USGS estimates 32,290 lb of Glyphosate on Bucks County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (11,879 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (9,157 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Bucks County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Bucks County — 3,094 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 19 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Bucks County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Bucks County
Closest first, across Bucks County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BK 1976Nitrate · 700 ft
- EAST ST CLNR/DOYLESTOWNBrownfields · 2000 ft
- INTERSTATE BATTERIESToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- GRETZ BEVERAGE BUCKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- GOLF CARSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- MICHAELS INVITATIONSBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- PINE RUN CONSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- LEM PRODBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- AUTOCRAFT BY STEVE GOODMANBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- LEVY SCH BUSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- EMC GLOBAL TECH INCBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- BK 1737Nitrate · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bucks County'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 Bucks County.
Severity Distribution
across Bucks County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Bucks County
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 Bucks County average
Your land is one point inside Bucks County
Everything above resolves to Bucks County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 387K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Bucks County Average
Bucks County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Bucks County
- ●One soil character for all of Bucks County
- ●Frost dates read at Bucks County's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bucks County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Bucks County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bucks County, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bucks County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bucks County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bucks County average
How we know this about Bucks County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Bucks County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Bucks County
When does frost risk typically end in Bucks County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bucks County typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
How long is the growing season in Bucks County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bucks County sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 24, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bucks County?
The federal record around Bucks County runs heavier than most — 3,094 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,291), the nearest Nitrate 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.
Everything above is measured at Bucks County's scale — its 7a band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bucks County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Pennsylvania's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Bucks County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Bucks County's own scale — its own ~220-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 3,094 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bucks County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bucks County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Bucks CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 3,094 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 0.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Bucks County's boundary and the 386,839 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Bucks County spans, Northern Piedmont the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Bucks County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Bucks County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Pennsylvania grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Pennsylvania
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Bucks County — the ~220 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bucks County's 386,839 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 3,094 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Bucks Countyread your own land →