Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
On paper, cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Drexel Hill, 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 Drexel Hill 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 Drexel Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Drexel Hill — the short answer
Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7b, about 244 days between hard freezes, across 2K 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 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~244
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Drexel Hill's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Drexel Hill's 244-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Drexel Hill
Each reading below is measured for Drexel Hill itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDrexel Hill runs about 244 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
MeasuredDrexel Hill 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 Drexel Hill is in
Drexel Hill sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Drexel Hill's own centroid rather than borrowed from Delaware County.
What Grows in Drexel Hill
Every plant below cleared Drexel Hill's own zone 7b and its 244-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Drexel Hill?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. 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 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Drexel Hill
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Drexel Hill, first recorded 2017. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Drexel Hill
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Drexel Hill. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RAMSEYS SVC STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- LEES SVC CTRUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- DREXEL HILL CITGOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- IACASTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- DREXEL HILL FUELS 69720Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- EXXON RAS NO 23902Brownfields · 2200 ft
- PEPPYS TOWINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- ST DOROTHY SCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- DREXELBROOK APTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- DREXELBROOK ASSOCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- RICCIARDI AUTO BODYBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- AMOCO 81Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Drexel Hill'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 Drexel Hill.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Drexel Hill
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Drexel Hill
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Drexel Hill, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 67 sites within ~10 miles of Drexel Hill. 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 Drexel Hill
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 Drexel Hill average
Your land is one point inside Drexel Hill
Everything above resolves to Drexel Hill as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Drexel Hill Average
Drexel Hill Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Drexel Hill
- ●One soil character for all of Drexel Hill
- ●Frost dates read at Drexel Hill's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Drexel Hill's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Drexel Hill
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Drexel Hill averages can't show:
We read public map data around Drexel Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Drexel Hill average
How we know this about Drexel Hill
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 Drexel Hill’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 Drexel Hill
When does frost risk typically end in Drexel Hill?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Drexel Hill 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 Drexel Hill?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Drexel Hill typically arrives around Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 5, so the watching starts about Oct 20 — about 244 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Drexel Hill?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Drexel Hill sees about 244 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Nov 5, about 209 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Drexel Hill?
The federal record around Drexel Hill runs heavier than most — 4,483 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,178), 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 Drexel Hill?
From about Oct 20 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 19 (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 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Drexel Hill's scale — its 7b band and its 244-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Drexel Hill'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 Drexel Hill’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Drexel Hill's own scale — its own ~244-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,047 acres it covers and 4,483 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Drexel Hill's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Drexel Hill's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 20 and Nov 19 and the ~244-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,483 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Drexel Hill, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Drexel Hill's boundary and the 2,047 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~244-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Drexel Hill's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Drexel Hilllydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Drexel Hill's 2,047 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 Drexel Hill's 2,047 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Drexel Hill you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,047 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 Drexel Hill-wide figureread your own land →
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