Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
On paper, cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Pocono Pines, 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 Pocono Pines 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 Pocono Pines — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Pocono Pines — the short answer
Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 6a, about 177 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~177
- 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 6a is Pocono Pines's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pocono Pines's 177-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pocono Pines
Each reading below is measured for Pocono Pines itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPocono Pines runs about 177 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredPocono Pines sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Pocono Pines is in
Pocono Pines sits in the North Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northern Forests. That is read at Pocono Pines's own centroid rather than borrowed from Monroe County.
What Grows in Pocono Pines
Every plant below cleared Pocono Pines's own zone 6a and its 177-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pocono Pines?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Pocono Pines
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Pocono Pines, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pocono Pines
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pocono Pines. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MO 320Nitrate · 1000 ft
- PRINTING CRAFTSMEN INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- LAKE NAOMI CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- MO 18Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- LAKE NAOMI CLUB MAINT BLDGUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- PREM LTDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- TOBYHANNA TWP BLDGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- FAMILY DOLLAR STORE NO 5823Brownfields · 1.1 mi
- MO 527Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- FEDEX FREIGHT POSBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- ROCKY RIDGE MICROWAVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- POCONO LAKE CTL OFCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pocono Pines'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 Pocono Pines.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pocono Pines
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pocono Pines
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pocono Pines, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Pocono Pines — PFAS (5 sites) and Superfund (5 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Pocono Pines
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 Pocono Pines average
Your land is one point inside Pocono Pines
Everything above resolves to Pocono Pines 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 Pocono Pines Average
Pocono Pines Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Pocono Pines
- ●One soil character for all of Pocono Pines
- ●Frost dates read at Pocono Pines's scale: Apr 25 to Oct 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pocono Pines's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pocono Pines
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pocono Pines averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pocono Pines — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pocono Pines average
How we know this about Pocono Pines
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 Pocono Pines’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 Pocono Pines
When does frost risk typically end in Pocono Pines?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pocono Pines typically lands around Apr 25, 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 May 16.
When is the first frost in Pocono Pines?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pocono Pines typically arrives around Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 5, so the watching starts about Sep 19 — about 177 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pocono Pines?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pocono Pines sees about 177 frost-free days — roughly Apr 25 through Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 16 to Oct 5, about 142 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pocono Pines?
The federal record around Pocono Pines runs heavier than most — 229 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (140), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.2 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 Pocono Pines?
From about Sep 19 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 Oct 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 Oct 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pocono Pines's scale — its 6a band and its 177-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pocono Pines'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 Pocono Pines’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pocono Pines's own scale — its own ~177-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,318 acres it covers and 229 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pocono Pines's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pocono Pines's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 25 and Oct 19 and the ~177-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 229 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pocono Pines, the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pocono Pines's boundary and the 3,318 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~177-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pocono Pines's own centroid, the North Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Pocono Pineslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Pocono Pines's 3,318 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Monroe County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Monroe 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 Monroe County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pocono Pines's 3,318 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pocono Pines you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,318 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 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 Pocono Pines-wide figureread your own land →