Mayo, South Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Mayo, 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 Mayo 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 Mayo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Mayo — the short answer
Mayo, South Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 241 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 18
- 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
- ~241
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Mayo's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mayo's 241-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mayo
Each reading below is measured for Mayo itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMayo runs about 241 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
MeasuredMayo 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 Mayo is in
Mayo sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mayo's own centroid rather than borrowed from Spartanburg County.
What Grows in Mayo
Every plant below cleared Mayo's own zone 8a and its 241-day season. Each card opens that plant's South Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mayo?
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 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 18 (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 Mayo
Survey cells within 31 miles of Mayo checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 54 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mayo
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mayo. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MAYO SPOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MAYO SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- CASHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MAPELLI BROTHERS COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- CRICKET 3854Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- LCF WATER DISTRICT (SC4220010)PFAS · 0.6 mi
- DAVIS TRADING POSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- OFFICE DEPOT #200Brownfields · 1.8 mi
- THE HOME DEPOT 1129Brownfields · 1.8 mi
- BAILEYS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- RONNIE BURNS FORD INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- CRICKET 3860Underground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mayo'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 Mayo.
Total Sites
519
within ~10 miles of Mayo
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mayo
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mayo
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mayo, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Mayo — Toxics Release Inventory (55 sites) and PFAS (5 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Mayo
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 Mayo average
Your land is one point inside Mayo
Everything above resolves to Mayo as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Mayo Average
Mayo Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Mayo
- ●One soil character for all of Mayo
- ●Frost dates read at Mayo's scale: Mar 18 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mayo's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mayo
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mayo, South Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mayo averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mayo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mayo average
How we know this about Mayo
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 Mayo’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 Mayo
When does frost risk typically end in Mayo?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mayo typically lands around Mar 18, 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 8.
When is the first frost in Mayo?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mayo 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 241 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mayo?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mayo sees about 241 frost-free days — roughly Mar 18 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 8 to Oct 31, about 206 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mayo?
The federal record around Mayo is a meaningful one — 519 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (312), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Mayo?
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 Mayo's scale — its 8a band and its 241-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mayo'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 Mayo’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mayo's own scale — its own ~241-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,946 acres it covers and 519 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mayo's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mayo's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 18 and Nov 14 and the ~241-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 519 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mayo, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mayo's boundary and the 1,946 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~241-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Mayo's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Mayo 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 Mayo's 1,946 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Spartanburg County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Spartanburg 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 Spartanburg County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mayo's 1,946 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mayo you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,946 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 Mayo-wide figureread your own land →