West Alexander, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in West Alexander, 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 West Alexander 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 West Alexander — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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West Alexander — the short answer
West Alexander, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 6b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 783 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 783 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 6b is West Alexander's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against West Alexander's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in West Alexander
Each reading below is measured for West Alexander itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWest Alexander runs about 200 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
MeasuredWest Alexander sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 West Alexander is in
West Alexander sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at West Alexander's own centroid rather than borrowed from Washington County.
What Grows in West Alexander
Every plant below cleared West Alexander's own zone 6b and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in West Alexander?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around West Alexander
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from West Alexander, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near West Alexander
Closest first, within ~10 miles of West Alexander. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PATTISONS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- DON SWART SCHOOL BUSESBrownfields · 1200 ft
- SUNOCO 0011 7697Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- BERGHOFF SVC CTRUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- JARVIS DOWNING & EMCH INCBrownfields · 2.2 mi
- NATIONAL RD UTILITY SUPPLY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- HELM TRUCKING/NO FORMSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- VALLEY GROVE PLAYGROUNDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- J E MILLER TSFR & STG COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- COLUMBIA GAS TRANS LLC DONEGAL COMPRESSOR STABrownfields · 2.6 mi
- FRYE'S STATE LINE GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- Ohi-0350Nitrate · 3.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from West Alexander'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 West Alexander.
Total Sites
196
within ~10 miles of West Alexander
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of West Alexander
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of West Alexander
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 West Alexander
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 West Alexander average
Your land is one point inside West Alexander
Everything above resolves to West Alexander as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 783 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 West Alexander Average
West Alexander Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across West Alexander
- ●One soil character for all of West Alexander
- ●Frost dates read at West Alexander's scale: Apr 11 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not West Alexander's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in West Alexander
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in West Alexander, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that West Alexander averages can't show:
We read public map data around West Alexander — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the West Alexander average
How we know this about West Alexander
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 West Alexander’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 West Alexander
When does frost risk typically end in West Alexander?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in West Alexander typically lands around Apr 11, 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 2.
When is the first frost in West Alexander?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in West Alexander typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in West Alexander?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, West Alexander sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 14, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in West Alexander?
The federal record around West Alexander shows 196 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (102), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in West Alexander?
From about Sep 28 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 28 (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 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at West Alexander's scale — its 6b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of West Alexander'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 West Alexander’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at West Alexander's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 783 acres it covers and 196 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- West Alexander's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- West Alexander's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 11 and Oct 28 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 196 documented contamination sites on the federal record near West Alexander, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- West Alexander's boundary and the 783 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at West Alexander's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of West Alexanderlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so West Alexander's 783 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Washington County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Washington 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 Washington County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among West Alexander's 783 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of West Alexander you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 783 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 West Alexander-wide figureread your own land →
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