Hickory Grove, South Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Hickory Grove, 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 Hickory Grove 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 Hickory Grove — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Hickory Grove — the short answer
Hickory Grove, South Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 239 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~239
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Hickory Grove's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hickory Grove's 239-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hickory Grove
Each reading below is measured for Hickory Grove itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHickory Grove runs about 239 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
MeasuredHickory Grove 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 Hickory Grove is in
Hickory Grove sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Hickory Grove's own centroid rather than borrowed from York County.
What Grows in Hickory Grove
Every plant below cleared Hickory Grove's own zone 8a and its 239-day season. Each card opens that plant's South Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hickory Grove?
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 Feb 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 14 — 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 Hickory Grove
Survey cells within 31 miles of Hickory Grove checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 49 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Hickory Grove
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hickory Grove. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LOVES SUNOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- C&M CONVENIENCE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- HICKORY GROVE SECTION SHEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- CATAWBA TIMBER COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- HICKSON CORPORATIONBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- HICKSON CORPORATIONToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- DOROTHY PEARCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- MARION COMERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Schlegemich MineMining · 2.6 mi
- Magnolia MineMining · 2.9 mi
- Brown MineMining · 3.2 mi
- Cassady MineMining · 3.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hickory Grove'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 Hickory Grove.
Total Sites
85
within ~10 miles of Hickory Grove
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hickory Grove
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hickory Grove
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hickory Grove, Mining runs higher than the national average — 31 sites within ~10 miles of Hickory Grove. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Hickory Grove
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 Hickory Grove average
Your land is one point inside Hickory Grove
Everything above resolves to Hickory Grove as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Hickory Grove Average
Hickory Grove Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Hickory Grove
- ●One soil character for all of Hickory Grove
- ●Frost dates read at Hickory Grove's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hickory Grove's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hickory Grove
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hickory Grove, South Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hickory Grove averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hickory Grove — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hickory Grove average
How we know this about Hickory Grove
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 Hickory Grove’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 Hickory Grove
When does frost risk typically end in Hickory Grove?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hickory Grove typically lands around Mar 20, 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 10.
When is the first frost in Hickory Grove?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hickory Grove typically arrives around Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 31, so the watching starts about Oct 15 — about 239 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hickory Grove?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hickory Grove sees about 239 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Oct 31, about 204 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hickory Grove?
The federal record around Hickory Grove runs heavier than most — 85 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (34), 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 Hickory Grove?
From about Oct 15 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 14 (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 14. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hickory Grove's scale — its 8a band and its 239-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hickory Grove'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 Hickory Grove’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Hickory Grove's own scale — its own ~239-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,084 acres it covers and 85 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hickory Grove's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hickory Grove's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 20 and Nov 14 and the ~239-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 85 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hickory Grove, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hickory Grove's boundary and the 1,084 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~239-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Hickory Grove's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Hickory Grove 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 Hickory Grove's 1,084 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 Hickory Grove's 1,084 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hickory Grove you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,084 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 Hickory Grove-wide figureread your own land →
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