North Charleston, South Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Expect artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in North Charleston, 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 North Charleston 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 North Charleston — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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North Charleston — the short answer
North Charleston, South Carolina: USDA zone 9a, about 320 days between hard freezes, across 50K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 1
- Charleston County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 18
- Charleston County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~320
- Charleston County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- City area
- 50K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Charleston County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is North Charleston's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against North Charleston's 320-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in North Charleston
Each reading below is measured for North Charleston itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsNorth Charleston runs about 320 days between hard freezes (read from Charleston County, the closest normal to North Charleston) — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredNorth Charleston sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 North Charleston is in
North Charleston sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at North Charleston's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Charleston County is mostly Southern Coastal Plain. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in North Charleston
Every plant below cleared North Charleston's own zone 9a and its 320-day season. Each card opens that plant's South Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in North Charleston?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 18 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around North Charleston
Survey cells within 31 miles of North Charleston checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 155 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near North Charleston
Closest first, within ~10 miles of North Charleston. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- N CHAS ARMORYUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- SCARNG NORTH CHARLESTONBrownfields · 900 ft
- EATON NORTH CHARLESTONToxics Release Inventory · 1200 ft
- EATON CORPORATIONBrownfields · 1200 ft
- EATON CORPORATIONToxics Release Inventory · 1200 ft
- ATLANTIC TRUCKING--CLOSEDBrownfields · 1300 ft
- EVERRIS NORTH AMERICA INC - NORTH CHARLESTONToxics Release Inventory · 1700 ft
- EVERRIS NORTH AMERICA INC - NORTH CHARLESTONBrownfields · 1700 ft
- HIGH-PURITY STANDARDS LLCBrownfields · 1900 ft
- BASF CATALYST LLCBrownfields · 2000 ft
- BASF CATALYST LLCToxics Release Inventory · 2000 ft
- GUNNELLS AUTOMOTIVEBrownfields · 2000 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from North Charleston'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 North Charleston.
Total Sites
1,491
within ~10 miles of North Charleston
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
26 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of North Charleston
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of North Charleston
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around North Charleston, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of North Charleston — Superfund (26 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (108 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in North Charleston
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 North Charleston average
Your land is one point inside North Charleston
Everything above resolves to North Charleston as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 50K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Charleston County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this city’s own centroid. 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 city 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 North Charleston Average
North Charleston Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across North Charleston
- ●One soil character for all of North Charleston
- ●Frost dates read at North Charleston's scale: Feb 1 to Dec 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not North Charleston's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in North Charleston
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in North Charleston, South Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that North Charleston averages can't show:
We read public map data around North Charleston — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the North Charleston average
How we know this about North Charleston
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Charleston County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 North Charleston
When does frost risk typically end in North Charleston?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in North Charleston typically lands around Feb 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 Feb 22.
When is the first frost in North Charleston?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in North Charleston typically arrives around Dec 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Dec 4, so the watching starts about Nov 18 — about 320 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in North Charleston?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, North Charleston sees about 320 frost-free days — roughly Feb 1 through Dec 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 22 to Dec 4, about 285 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in North Charleston?
The federal record around North Charleston is a meaningful one — 1,491 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (802), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 North Charleston?
From about Nov 18 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 Dec 18 (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 Dec 18. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at North Charleston's scale — its 9a band and its 320-day season. Your yard writes its own version of North Charleston'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 North Charleston’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at North Charleston's own scale — the 49,900 acres it covers and 1,491 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- North Charleston's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 1,491 documented contamination sites on the federal record near North Charleston, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- North Charleston's boundary and the 49,900 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~320-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- North Charleston sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around North Charleston checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — North Charleston has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Charleston County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so North Charleston's 49,900 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Charleston County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Charleston 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 Charleston County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among North Charleston's 49,900 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of North Charleston you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 49,900 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 North Charleston-wide figureread your own land →