Clover, South Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Clover, 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 Clover 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 Clover — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Clover — the short answer
Clover, South Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 251 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~251
- 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 8a is Clover's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Clover's 251-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Clover
Each reading below is measured for Clover itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredClover runs about 251 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
MeasuredClover sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Clover is in
Clover sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Clover's own centroid rather than borrowed from York County.
What Grows in Clover
Every plant below cleared Clover's own zone 8a and its 251-day season. Each card opens that plant's South Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Clover?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 20 — 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 Clover
Survey cells within 31 miles of Clover checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 35 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Clover
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Clover. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- YORK CLOVER CONCRETEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- SOUTHERN BELL CLVRSCESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- QUICK E MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- CLOVER NAPAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- CIRCLE K 2720621Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- CLOVER TOWN OF (4610006)PFAS · 2000 ft
- CVS PHARMACY 7036Brownfields · 2000 ft
- CLOVER OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR 1500Brownfields · 2200 ft
- STANTON MHPBrownfields · 2300 ft
- KILLIANS SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- CIRCLE K 1505Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Clover'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 Clover.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Clover
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Clover
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Clover, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Clover — Superfund (7 sites) and PFAS (4 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Clover
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 Clover average
Your land is one point inside Clover
Everything above resolves to Clover 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 Clover Average
Clover Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Clover
- ●One soil character for all of Clover
- ●Frost dates read at Clover's scale: Mar 14 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Clover's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Clover
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Clover, South Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Clover averages can't show:
We read public map data around Clover — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Clover average
How we know this about Clover
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 Clover’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 Clover
When does frost risk typically end in Clover?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Clover typically lands around Mar 14, 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 4.
When is the first frost in Clover?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Clover typically arrives around Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 6, so the watching starts about Oct 21 — about 251 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Clover?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Clover sees about 251 frost-free days — roughly Mar 14 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 4 to Nov 6, about 216 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Clover?
The federal record around Clover runs heavier than most — 356 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (222), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Clover?
From about Oct 21 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Clover's scale — its 8a band and its 251-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Clover'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 Clover’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Clover's own scale — its own ~251-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,028 acres it covers and 356 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Clover's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Clover's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 14 and Nov 20 and the ~251-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 356 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Clover, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Clover's boundary and the 3,028 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~251-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Clover's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Clover checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Clover's 3,028 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom York County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom York County
- The growing challenges every South Carolina grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom South Carolina
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom York County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Clover's 3,028 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Clover you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,028 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Clover-wide figureread your own land →
More in South Carolina
Growing region
Nearby growing guides