Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Plymouth Meeting, 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 Plymouth Meeting 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 Plymouth Meeting — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Plymouth Meeting — the short answer
Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7b, about 228 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~228
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Plymouth Meeting's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Plymouth Meeting's 228-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Plymouth Meeting
Each reading below is measured for Plymouth Meeting itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPlymouth Meeting runs about 228 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
MeasuredPlymouth Meeting 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 Plymouth Meeting is in
Plymouth Meeting sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Plymouth Meeting's own centroid rather than borrowed from Montgomery County.
What Grows in Plymouth Meeting
Every plant below cleared Plymouth Meeting's own zone 7b and its 228-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Plymouth Meeting?
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 Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — 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 Plymouth Meeting
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Plymouth Meeting, first recorded 2017. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Plymouth Meeting
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Plymouth Meeting. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ERTUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- PA TURNPIKE FACILITY PLYMOUTH MEETING MAINTBrownfields · 1000 ft
- PLYMOUTH MEETING GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- HOSS MANN/VICTORYToxics Release Inventory · 1500 ft
- PLYMOUTH MEETING MAINTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- PLYMOUTH MTG MAINTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- LUKOIL 69712Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- GETTY 69718Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- LUKOIL 69725Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- WHITEMARSH COLLISION INC/PLYMOUTH MEETINGBrownfields · 1900 ft
- PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH HIGH SCHBrownfields · 1900 ft
- WHITEMARSH TWP PUMP STA 5Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Plymouth Meeting'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 Plymouth Meeting.
Total Sites
3,409
within ~10 miles of Plymouth Meeting
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
32 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Plymouth Meeting
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Plymouth Meeting
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 Plymouth Meeting
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 Plymouth Meeting average
Your land is one point inside Plymouth Meeting
Everything above resolves to Plymouth Meeting as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Plymouth Meeting Average
Plymouth Meeting Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Plymouth Meeting
- ●One soil character for all of Plymouth Meeting
- ●Frost dates read at Plymouth Meeting's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Plymouth Meeting's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Plymouth Meeting
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Plymouth Meeting averages can't show:
We read public map data around Plymouth Meeting — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Plymouth Meeting average
How we know this about Plymouth Meeting
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 Plymouth Meeting’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 Plymouth Meeting
When does frost risk typically end in Plymouth Meeting?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Plymouth Meeting typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Plymouth Meeting?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Plymouth Meeting typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 228 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Plymouth Meeting?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Plymouth Meeting sees about 228 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 29, about 193 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Plymouth Meeting?
The federal record around Plymouth Meeting runs heavier than most — 3,409 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,893), 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 Plymouth Meeting?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Plymouth Meeting's scale — its 7b band and its 228-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Plymouth Meeting'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 Plymouth Meeting’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Plymouth Meeting's own scale — its own ~228-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,501 acres it covers and 3,409 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Plymouth Meeting's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Plymouth Meeting's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 12 and the ~228-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,409 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Plymouth Meeting, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Plymouth Meeting's boundary and the 2,501 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~228-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Plymouth Meeting's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Plymouth Meetinglydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Plymouth Meeting's 2,501 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Montgomery County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Montgomery 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 Montgomery County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Plymouth Meeting's 2,501 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Plymouth Meeting you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,501 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 Plymouth Meeting-wide figureread your own land →
More in Pennsylvania
Wider growing context
What grows across PennsylvaniaPlymouth Meeting sits outside our named growing regions, so Pennsylvania as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides