Powells Crossroads, Tennessee, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Powells Crossroads, 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 Powells Crossroads 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 Powells Crossroads — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Powells Crossroads — the short answer
Powells Crossroads, Tennessee: USDA zone 8a, about 247 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~247
- 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 Powells Crossroads's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Powells Crossroads's 247-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Powells Crossroads
Each reading below is measured for Powells Crossroads itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPowells Crossroads runs about 247 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
MeasuredPowells Crossroads 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 Powells Crossroads is in
Powells Crossroads sits in the Southwestern Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Powells Crossroads's own centroid rather than borrowed from Marion County.
What Grows in Powells Crossroads
Every plant below cleared Powells Crossroads's own zone 8a and its 247-day season. Each card opens that plant's Tennessee profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Powells Crossroads?
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 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Powells Crossroads
Survey cells within 31 miles of Powells Crossroads checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 80 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Powells Crossroads
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Powells Crossroads. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Stop N Go MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Valley View Senior LivingUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Whitwell ExxonUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Castle's Grocery, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Tennessee DotUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Raceway #739Underground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Sam's PlaceUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Terry's Tires and Auto CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Whitwell Quick StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Terry's AmocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Jr Food MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Thressa Ann MearsUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Powells Crossroads'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 Powells Crossroads.
Total Sites
78
within ~10 miles of Powells Crossroads
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Powells Crossroads
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Powells Crossroads
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Powells Crossroads, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Powells Crossroads — PFAS (3 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (48 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Powells Crossroads
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 Powells Crossroads average
Your land is one point inside Powells Crossroads
Everything above resolves to Powells Crossroads 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 Powells Crossroads Average
Powells Crossroads Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Powells Crossroads
- ●One soil character for all of Powells Crossroads
- ●Frost dates read at Powells Crossroads's scale: Mar 14 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Powells Crossroads's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Powells Crossroads
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Powells Crossroads, Tennessee — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Powells Crossroads averages can't show:
We read public map data around Powells Crossroads — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Powells Crossroads average
How we know this about Powells Crossroads
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 Powells Crossroads’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 Powells Crossroads
When does frost risk typically end in Powells Crossroads?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Powells Crossroads typically lands around Mar 14, 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 4.
When is the first frost in Powells Crossroads?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Powells Crossroads typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 247 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Powells Crossroads?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Powells Crossroads sees about 247 frost-free days — roughly Mar 14 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 4 to Nov 2, about 212 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Powells Crossroads?
The federal record around Powells Crossroads is a meaningful one — 78 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (48), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Powells Crossroads?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Powells Crossroads's scale — its 8a band and its 247-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Powells Crossroads'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 Powells Crossroads’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Powells Crossroads's own scale — its own ~247-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,134 acres it covers and 78 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Powells Crossroads's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Powells Crossroads's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 14 and Nov 16 and the ~247-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 78 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Powells Crossroads, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Powells Crossroads's boundary and the 3,134 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~247-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Powells Crossroads's own centroid, the Southwestern AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Powells Crossroads 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 Powells Crossroads's 3,134 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Marion County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Marion 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 Marion County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Powells Crossroads's 3,134 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Powells Crossroads you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,134 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Powells Crossroads-wide figureread your own land →