Belle Meade, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Belle Meade, 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 Belle Meade 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 Belle Meade — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Belle Meade — the short answer
Belle Meade, Tennessee: USDA zone 7b, about 232 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~232
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City 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 7b is Belle Meade's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Belle Meade's 232-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Belle Meade
Each reading below is measured for Belle Meade itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBelle Meade runs about 232 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
MeasuredBelle Meade sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Belle Meade is in
Belle Meade sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Belle Meade's own centroid rather than borrowed from Davidson County.
What Grows in Belle Meade
Every plant below cleared Belle Meade's own zone 7b and its 232-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Belle Meade?
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 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Belle Meade
Spotted lanternfly documented 9 miles from Belle Meade, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Belle Meade
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Belle Meade. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Belle Meade County ClubUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- 4301 Belle Meade ShellUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- Kar Plus Inc Dba Tune Up PlusUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- Daily's #8894Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Lawson Mobil StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- West Meade AmocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- 6608 DailysUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Belle Meade ExpressUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Leo Johnson Contracting CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- VANDERBILT HEALTH BELLE MEADEBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- Lawson And Son Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- South Central Bell Glc# 82350Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Belle Meade'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 Belle Meade.
Total Sites
1,670
within ~10 miles of Belle Meade
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
10 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Belle Meade
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Belle Meade
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Belle Meade, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Belle Meade — Toxics Release Inventory (121 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (1,117 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Belle Meade
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 Belle Meade average
Your land is one point inside Belle Meade
Everything above resolves to Belle Meade 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 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 Belle Meade Average
Belle Meade Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Belle Meade
- ●One soil character for all of Belle Meade
- ●Frost dates read at Belle Meade's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Belle Meade's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Belle Meade
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Belle Meade, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Belle Meade averages can't show:
We read public map data around Belle Meade — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Belle Meade average
How we know this about Belle Meade
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 Belle Meade’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 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 Belle Meade
When does frost risk typically end in Belle Meade?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Belle Meade typically lands around Mar 23, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Belle Meade?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Belle Meade typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 232 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Belle Meade?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Belle Meade sees about 232 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Oct 27, about 197 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Belle Meade?
The federal record around Belle Meade is a meaningful one — 1,670 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,117), 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 Belle Meade?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Belle Meade's scale — its 7b band and its 232-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Belle Meade'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 Belle Meade’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Belle Meade's own scale — its own ~232-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,965 acres it covers and 1,670 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Belle Meade's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Belle Meade's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 23 and Nov 10 and the ~232-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,670 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Belle Meade, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Belle Meade's boundary and the 1,965 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~232-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Belle Meade's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Belle Meadelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Belle Meade's 1,965 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Davidson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Davidson County
- The growing challenges every Tennessee grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Tennessee
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Davidson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Belle Meade's 1,965 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Belle Meade you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,965 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 Belle Meade-wide figureread your own land →