Denton County, in Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Denton County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Denton County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Denton County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Denton County — the short answer
Denton County, Texas: USDA zone 8b, about 279 days between hard freezes, across 562K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~279
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 562K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 8b is Denton County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Denton County's 279-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Denton County
Across a year, Denton County accumulates about 5,889 growing degree days above 50°F, about 65 more than the middle Texas county — ahead of 137 of Texas’s 254 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 1,090 hours below 45°F, 5 fewer than the Texas middle of 1,095. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Denton County
Across Denton County, the ground is predominantly Vertisols, where Sanger, Somervell, and Callisburg are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.5–8.0, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Vertisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
46%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Denton County
The USDA soil survey maps 61% of Denton County as well drained — but another 31% drains differently: 31% moderately well drained.
Sanger is the most extensive named soil at 13% of mapped acres, then Somervell (6%) and Callisburg (5%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Denton County
Each reading below is measured for Denton County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Denton County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Denton County runs about pH 6.5–8.0, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredDenton County runs about 279 days between hard freezes — 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
MeasuredDenton County sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Denton County is in
Denton County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Cross Timbers (74%) and Texas Blackland Prairies (26%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Denton County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Denton County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 279-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile.
Is it too late to plant in Denton County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 29 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
Documented around Denton County
- monarch butterfly140 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Denton County
USGS estimates 21,632 lb of Glyphosate on Denton County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (21,259 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (10,072 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Denton County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Denton County — 1,083 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 10 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Denton County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Denton County
Closest first, across Denton County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DAVID HOENIG ELECTRICUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- HENSLEY PACKINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- EARLS TEXACO 80100Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- SUNRISE ENTERPRISESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- PATTERSON STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- LAKE CITIES MUAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- SANGER RANCH SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- ABRAM & ZELMA MELLARUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- JUSTIN TIME AIRFIELDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- HAPPYS STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- REDI-MIX CONCRETEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- OLD JACK CHUN STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Denton County'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 Denton County.
Total Sites
1,083
across Denton County
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
10 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
across Denton County
Severity Distribution
across Denton County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Denton County, two things run higher than the national average across Denton County — PFAS (27 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (756 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Denton County
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 Denton County average
Your land is one point inside Denton County
Everything above resolves to Denton County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 562K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Denton County Average
Denton County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Denton County
- ●One soil character for all of Denton County
- ●Frost dates read at Denton County's scale: Feb 23 to Nov 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Denton County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Denton County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Denton County, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Denton County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Denton County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Denton County average
How we know this about Denton County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Denton County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Denton County
When does frost risk typically end in Denton County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Denton County typically lands around Feb 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 Mar 16.
How long is the growing season in Denton County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Denton County sees about 279 frost-free days — roughly Feb 23 through Nov 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 16 to Nov 15, about 244 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Denton County?
The federal record around Denton County runs heavier than most — 1,083 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (756), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Denton County's scale — its 8b band and its 279-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Denton County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Texas's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Denton County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Denton County's own scale — its own ~279-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,083 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Denton County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Denton County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~279-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Denton CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,083 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Denton County's boundary and the 562,407 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~279-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Denton County spans, Cross Timbers the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Denton County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Denton County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Texas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Texas
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Denton County — the ~279 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Denton County's 562,407 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,083 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Denton Countyread your own land →