Liberty, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Among the crops suited to this profile: okra, meyer lemon, california poppy, and artichoke. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Liberty, 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 Liberty 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 Liberty — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Liberty — the short answer
Liberty, Texas: USDA zone 9b, about 317 days between hard freezes, across 28K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 9b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Jan 27
- Liberty County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 10
- Liberty County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~317
- Liberty County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- City area
- 28K 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 Liberty County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9b is Liberty's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Liberty's 317-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Liberty
Each reading below is measured for Liberty itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsLiberty runs about 317 days between hard freezes (read from Liberty County, the closest normal to Liberty) — 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
MeasuredLiberty 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 Liberty is in
Liberty sits in the South Central Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Liberty's own centroid rather than borrowed from Liberty County.
What Grows in Liberty
Every plant below cleared Liberty's own zone 9b and its 317-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Liberty?
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 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. And with a calendar this mild, the honest answer is that planting barely stops — winter opens seasons colder regions never see.
What's on the federal record near Liberty
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Liberty. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- J G BERTMAN JRUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- SB-61-58-507Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- SB-61-58-506Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- BOOMERANG TBE, LLCToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- ALLIED TUBE & CONDUIT CORPORATIONBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- BOOMERANG TBE, LLCBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- ALLIED TUBE & CONDUIT CORPORATIONToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- TEX-LA OILFIELD SERVICESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- STAR TEX COBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- LIBERTY IMPLEMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- 13TH FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- TRIANGLE PETROLEUMUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Liberty'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 Liberty.
Total Sites
328
within ~10 miles of Liberty
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
14 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Liberty
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Liberty
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Liberty, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Liberty — Underground Storage Tanks (230 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Liberty
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 Liberty average
Your land is one point inside Liberty
Everything above resolves to Liberty as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 28K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Liberty 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 Liberty Average
Liberty Average
- ●USDA Zones 9b, averaged across Liberty
- ●One soil character for all of Liberty
- ●Frost dates read at Liberty's scale: Jan 27 to Dec 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Liberty's 9b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Liberty
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Liberty, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Liberty averages can't show:
We read public map data around Liberty — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Liberty average
How we know this about Liberty
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 Liberty 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 Liberty
When does frost risk typically end in Liberty?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Liberty 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 Liberty?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Liberty typically arrives around Dec 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 26, so the watching starts about Nov 10 — about 317 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Liberty?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Liberty sees about 317 frost-free days — roughly Jan 27 through Dec 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 17 to Nov 26, about 282 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Liberty?
The federal record around Liberty is a meaningful one — 328 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (230), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Liberty?
From about Nov 10 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 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 Dec 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Liberty's scale — its 9b band and its 317-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Liberty'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 Liberty’s own scale
5 of the readings below were taken at Liberty's own scale — the 28,493 acres it covers and 328 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Liberty's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 328 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Liberty, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Liberty's boundary and the 28,493 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9b and a ~317-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Liberty's own centroid, the South Central PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Liberty has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Liberty County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Liberty's 28,493 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Liberty County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Liberty 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 Liberty County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Liberty's 28,493 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Liberty you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 28,493 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Liberty-wide figureread your own land →
More in Texas
Growing region
Nearby growing guides