Startex, 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 Startex, 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 Startex 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 Startex — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Startex — the short answer
Startex, South Carolina: USDA zone 8a, about 255 days between hard freezes, across 694 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~255
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 694 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 Startex's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Startex's 255-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Startex
Each reading below is measured for Startex itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredStartex runs about 255 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
MeasuredStartex 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 Startex is in
Startex sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Startex's own centroid rather than borrowed from Spartanburg County.
What Grows in Startex
Every plant below cleared Startex's own zone 8a and its 255-day season. Each card opens that plant's South Carolina profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Startex?
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 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 23 — 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 Startex
Survey cells within 31 miles of Startex checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 52 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Startex
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Startex. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BEE LINE FOOD STORES 5Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- PERFORMANCE PIPE WELLFORD PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 2400 ft
- PERFORMANCE PIPEToxics Release Inventory · 2400 ft
- STARTEX FINISHING COToxics Release Inventory · 2400 ft
- SPARTAN MILLS:STARTEX CLOSEDToxics Release Inventory · 2400 ft
- AARDVARK OILBrownfields · 2500 ft
- PERFORMANCE PIPE DIV OF CHEVRON PHILLIPS CHEM COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- PHILLIPS DRISCOPIPE INCORPORATEDBrownfields · 2600 ft
- PHILLIPS DRISCOPIPE INCORPORATEDToxics Release Inventory · 2600 ft
- CSX TRANSPORTATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- THOMASON BROS OF STARTEX INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- STARTEX MILLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Startex'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 Startex.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Startex
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Startex
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Startex, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 141 sites within ~10 miles of Startex. 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.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Startex
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 Startex average
Your land is one point inside Startex
Everything above resolves to Startex as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 694 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 Startex Average
Startex Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Startex
- ●One soil character for all of Startex
- ●Frost dates read at Startex's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Startex's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Startex
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Startex, South Carolina — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Startex averages can't show:
We read public map data around Startex — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Startex average
How we know this about Startex
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 Startex’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 Startex
When does frost risk typically end in Startex?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Startex typically lands around Mar 13, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Startex?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Startex typically arrives around Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 9, so the watching starts about Oct 24 — about 255 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Startex?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Startex sees about 255 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 9, about 220 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Startex?
The federal record around Startex is a meaningful one — 1,336 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (712), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Startex?
From about Oct 24 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 23 (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 23. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Startex's scale — its 8a band and its 255-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Startex'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 Startex’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Startex's own scale — its own ~255-day season between 28°F freezes, the 694 acres it covers and 1,336 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Startex's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Startex's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 13 and Nov 23 and the ~255-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,336 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Startex, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Startex's boundary and the 694 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~255-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Startex's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Startex 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 Startex's 694 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 Startex's 694 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Startex you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 694 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Startex-wide figureread your own land →