Fulshear, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Expect okra, black-eyed pea, tomato, and jalapeno to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Fulshear, 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 Fulshear 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 Fulshear — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Fulshear — the short answer
Fulshear, Texas: USDA zone 9a, about 319 days between hard freezes, across 8K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 27
- Fort Bend County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 12
- Fort Bend County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~319
- Fort Bend County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- City area
- 8K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Fort Bend County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Fulshear's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fulshear's 319-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fulshear
Each reading below is measured for Fulshear itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsFulshear runs about 319 days between hard freezes (read from Fort Bend County, the closest normal to Fulshear) — 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
MeasuredFulshear sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Fulshear is in
Fulshear sits in the Western Gulf Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Fulshear's own centroid rather than borrowed from Fort Bend County.
What Grows in Fulshear
Plants matched to Fulshear's USDA zones 9a, ordered by how much hardiness margin each has here — the ones with room to spare at both ends of this town's band lead. Each links to its full growing profile.
Is it too late to plant in Fulshear?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 12 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
Documented around Fulshear
Survey cells within 31 miles of Fulshear checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 509 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Fulshear
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fulshear. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FULSHEAR DRIVE INUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- TPG 305-05Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- COUNTRY MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- FORT BEND COUNTY PCT 4Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- RANSON FEED STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- CITY OF FULSHEARPFAS · 1.4 mi
- FORT BEND COUNTY MUD 81 WESTON LAKESPFAS · 1.4 mi
- JY-65-17-301Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- TPG 29906Underground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- TEPPCO CRUDE KATY STATIONBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- COVEY TRAILS AIRPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- WALMART SUPERCENTER 4111Brownfields · 2.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fulshear'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 Fulshear.
Total Sites
324
within ~10 miles of Fulshear
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
28 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fulshear
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fulshear
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fulshear, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Fulshear — PFAS (37 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (28 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Fulshear
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 Fulshear average
Your land is one point inside Fulshear
Everything above resolves to Fulshear as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 8K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Fort Bend County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this city’s own centroid. 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 Fulshear Average
Fulshear Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Fulshear
- ●One soil character for all of Fulshear
- ●Frost dates read at Fulshear's scale: Jan 27 to Dec 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fulshear's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fulshear
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fulshear, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fulshear averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fulshear — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fulshear average
How we know this about Fulshear
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 Fort Bend County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 Fulshear
When does frost risk typically end in Fulshear?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fulshear typically lands around Jan 27, 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 Feb 17.
When is the first frost in Fulshear?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fulshear typically arrives around Dec 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 28, so the watching starts about Nov 12 — about 319 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fulshear?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fulshear sees about 319 frost-free days — roughly Jan 27 through Dec 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 17 to Nov 28, about 284 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fulshear?
The federal record around Fulshear runs heavier than most — 324 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (167), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Fulshear?
From about Nov 12 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 Dec 12 (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 Dec 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fulshear's scale — its 9a band and its 319-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fulshear'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 Fulshear’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Fulshear's own scale — the 8,271 acres it covers and 324 documented sites around it; 6 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fulshear's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 324 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fulshear, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fulshear's boundary and the 8,271 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- The ecoregion at Fulshear's own centroid, the Western Gulf Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Fulshear checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Fulshear has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Fort Bend County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Fulshear's 8,271 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Fort Bend County
- The candidate plant list — Texas's curated set, filtered to this zone band and re-ordered by how much margin each has herefrom Texas
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Fort Bend County
- The growing challenges every Texas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Texas
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Fort Bend County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fulshear's 8,271 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fulshear you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 8,271 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 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 Fulshear-wide figureread your own land →
More in Texas
Wider growing context
What grows across TexasFulshear sits outside our named growing regions, so Texas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides