Roebuck, South Carolina, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Roebuck, 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 Roebuck 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 Roebuck — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Roebuck — the short answer
Roebuck, South Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 250 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 15
- 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
- ~250
- 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 Roebuck's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Roebuck's 250-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Roebuck
Each reading below is measured for Roebuck itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRoebuck runs about 250 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
MeasuredRoebuck 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 Roebuck is in
Roebuck sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Roebuck's own centroid rather than borrowed from Spartanburg County.
What Grows in Roebuck
Every plant below cleared Roebuck's own zone 8a and its 250-day season. Each card opens that plant's South Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Roebuck?
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 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 15 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Roebuck
Survey cells within 31 miles of Roebuck checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 60 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Roebuck
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Roebuck. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HYATT ENTERPRISESUnderground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- FORMER JOE GRIFFIN GEAR & MACHUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- SYNTHOMER USA LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- SAFETY-KLEEN (ROEBUCK) INC.Brownfields · 2100 ft
- SAFETY-KLEEN (ROEBUCK) INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 2100 ft
- SYNTHOMER USA LLCBrownfields · 2400 ft
- SYNTHOMER USA LLCToxics Release Inventory · 2400 ft
- HICKORY POINT ROEBUCK 28Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- FAMILY DOLLAR 9331Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- FLOWERS BAKING COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CIRCLE K 2705387Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- SPEEDWAY 4570Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Roebuck'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 Roebuck.
Total Sites
1,123
within ~10 miles of Roebuck
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Roebuck
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Roebuck
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Roebuck, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 113 sites within ~10 miles of Roebuck. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Roebuck
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 Roebuck average
Your land is one point inside Roebuck
Everything above resolves to Roebuck 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 Roebuck Average
Roebuck Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Roebuck
- ●One soil character for all of Roebuck
- ●Frost dates read at Roebuck's scale: Mar 15 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Roebuck's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Roebuck
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Roebuck, South Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Roebuck averages can't show:
We read public map data around Roebuck — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Roebuck average
How we know this about Roebuck
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 Roebuck’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 Roebuck
When does frost risk typically end in Roebuck?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Roebuck typically lands around Mar 15, 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 5.
When is the first frost in Roebuck?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Roebuck 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 250 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Roebuck?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Roebuck sees about 250 frost-free days — roughly Mar 15 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 5 to Nov 6, about 215 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Roebuck?
The federal record around Roebuck is a meaningful one — 1,123 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (634), 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 Roebuck?
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 Roebuck's scale — its 8a band and its 250-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Roebuck'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 Roebuck’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Roebuck's own scale — its own ~250-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,747 acres it covers and 1,123 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Roebuck's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Roebuck's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 15 and Nov 20 and the ~250-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,123 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Roebuck, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Roebuck's boundary and the 2,747 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~250-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Roebuck's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Roebuck 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 Roebuck's 2,747 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 Roebuck's 2,747 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Roebuck you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,747 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 Roebuck-wide figureread your own land →