St. Davids, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in St. Davids, 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 St. Davids 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 St. Davids — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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St. Davids — the short answer
St. Davids, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 988 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~221
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 988 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 7a is St. Davids's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against St. Davids's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in St. Davids
Each reading below is measured for St. Davids itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSt. Davids runs about 221 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
MeasuredSt. Davids sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 St. Davids is in
St. Davids sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at St. Davids's own centroid rather than borrowed from Delaware County.
What Grows in St. Davids
Every plant below cleared St. Davids's own zone 7a and its 221-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in St. Davids?
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 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 8 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around St. Davids
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from St. Davids, first recorded 2018. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near St. Davids
Closest first, within ~10 miles of St. Davids. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ST DAVIDS SQUAREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- OFFICE BLDG COMPLEXUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- RADNOR FINANCIAL CENTERBrownfields · 1900 ft
- FORD OF THE MAIN LINEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #0370Brownfields · 2500 ft
- AMOCO CAR WASHUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- ST KATHARINE CHUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- SUNOCO SRV STA NO. 0363-2787Brownfields · 2600 ft
- 7 ELEVEN 40150Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- ABERDEEN SUNOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- RADNOR TWP PUBLIC WORKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CLASSIC COACH WORKBrownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from St. Davids'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 St. Davids.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of St. Davids
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of St. Davids
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 St. Davids
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 St. Davids average
Your land is one point inside St. Davids
Everything above resolves to St. Davids as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 988 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 St. Davids Average
St. Davids Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across St. Davids
- ●One soil character for all of St. Davids
- ●Frost dates read at St. Davids's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not St. Davids's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in St. Davids
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in St. Davids, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that St. Davids averages can't show:
We read public map data around St. Davids — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the St. Davids average
How we know this about St. Davids
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 St. Davids’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 St. Davids
When does frost risk typically end in St. Davids?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in St. Davids 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.
When is the first frost in St. Davids?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in St. Davids typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 221 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in St. Davids?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, St. Davids sees about 221 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 25, about 186 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in St. Davids?
The federal record around St. Davids runs heavier than most — 3,054 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,596), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 St. Davids?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at St. Davids's scale — its 7a band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of St. Davids'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 St. Davids’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at St. Davids's own scale — its own ~221-day season between 28°F freezes, the 988 acres it covers and 3,054 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- St. Davids's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- St. Davids's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 8 and the ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,054 documented contamination sites on the federal record near St. Davids, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- St. Davids's boundary and the 988 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at St. Davids's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of St. Davidslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so St. Davids's 988 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 St. Davids's 988 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of St. Davids you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 988 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 St. Davids-wide figureread your own land →
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