Highlands, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
A short list that earns its place here — okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Highlands, 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 Highlands 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 Highlands — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Highlands — the short answer
Highlands, Texas: USDA zone 9b, about 323 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 28
- Harris County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 17
- Harris County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~323
- Harris County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Harris County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9b is Highlands's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Highlands's 323-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Highlands
Each reading below is measured for Highlands itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsHighlands runs about 323 days between hard freezes (read from Harris County, the closest normal to Highlands) — 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
MeasuredHighlands sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b.
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 Highlands is in
Highlands sits in the Western Gulf Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Highlands's own centroid rather than borrowed from Harris County.
What Grows in Highlands
Every plant below cleared Highlands's own zone 9b and its 323-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Highlands?
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 Jan 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Jan 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 17 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Highlands
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Highlands. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SPEEDY EXPRESS 3Underground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- ANGELS GAS & GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- PAPAS LIQUORUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- SNAPPY MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- MIDWAY 24Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- BOUQUETS BY MAEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- HIGHLANDS PLANTBrownfields · 1900 ft
- HIGHLANDS PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 1900 ft
- BISHOPS EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- UNION PACIFIC RAILROADUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- GERLANDS FUEL ADVANTAGE 864Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR #4273Brownfields · 2200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Highlands'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 Highlands.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Highlands
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Highlands
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Highlands, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Highlands — Toxics Release Inventory (251 sites) and PFAS (24 sites). 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Highlands
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 Highlands average
Your land is one point inside Highlands
Everything above resolves to Highlands as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 3K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Harris County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’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 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 Highlands Average
Highlands Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Highlands
- ●One soil character for all of Highlands
- ●Frost dates read at Highlands's scale: Jan 28 to Dec 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Highlands's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Highlands
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Highlands, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Highlands averages can't show:
We read public map data around Highlands — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Highlands average
How we know this about Highlands
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 Harris 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 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 Highlands
When does frost risk typically end in Highlands?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Highlands typically lands around Jan 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Highlands?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Highlands typically arrives around Dec 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Dec 3, so the watching starts about Nov 17 — about 323 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Highlands?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Highlands sees about 323 frost-free days — roughly Jan 28 through Dec 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 18 to Dec 3, about 288 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Highlands?
The federal record around Highlands runs heavier than most — 1,542 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (683), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Highlands?
From about Nov 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 Dec 17 (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 17. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Highlands's scale — its 9b band and its 323-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Highlands'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 Highlands’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Highlands's own scale — the 3,124 acres it covers and 1,542 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Highlands's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 1,542 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Highlands, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Highlands's boundary and the 3,124 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~323-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Highlands's own centroid, the Western Gulf Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Highlands has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Harris County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Highlands's 3,124 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Harris County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Harris 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 Harris County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Highlands's 3,124 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Highlands you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,124 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Highlands-wide figureread your own land →
More in Texas
Wider growing context
What grows across TexasHighlands sits outside our named growing regions, so Texas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides