Nocona Hills, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Nocona Hills, 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 Nocona Hills 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 Nocona Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Nocona Hills — the short answer
Nocona Hills, Texas: USDA zone 8a, about 259 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~259
- 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 Nocona Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Nocona Hills's 259-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Nocona Hills
Each reading below is measured for Nocona Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNocona Hills runs about 259 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
MeasuredNocona Hills 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 Nocona Hills is in
Nocona Hills sits in the Cross Timbers — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Nocona Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Montague County.
What Grows in Nocona Hills
Every plant below cleared Nocona Hills's own zone 8a and its 259-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Nocona Hills?
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 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 23 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What's on the federal record near Nocona Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Nocona Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- UNAUTHORIZED DISPOSAL OESTE COURT NOCONABrownfields · 1.6 mi
- FUEL WORLDUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.0 mi
- NOCONA BOOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.2 mi
- NOCONA BOOT COMPANYToxics Release Inventory · 6.2 mi
- SKINNER CATTLE STORAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.3 mi
- JIMS A TO Z TRADING POSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.4 mi
- FAMILY DOLLAR #8752Brownfields · 6.4 mi
- WILLIAM THOMAS SKINNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.5 mi
- KARR MCGEEUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.5 mi
- REDMAN BACKHOE & TANK TRUCK SERVUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.5 mi
- NOCONA ISDUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.5 mi
- ONE STOP CONOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Nocona Hills'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 Nocona Hills.
Total Sites
26
within ~10 miles of Nocona Hills
Risk Level
Low
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Nocona Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Nocona Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Nocona Hills, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 23 sites within ~10 miles of Nocona Hills. 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.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Nocona Hills
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 Nocona Hills average
Your land is one point inside Nocona Hills
Everything above resolves to Nocona Hills 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 Nocona Hills Average
Nocona Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Nocona Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Nocona Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Nocona Hills's scale: Mar 9 to Nov 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Nocona Hills's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Nocona Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Nocona Hills, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Nocona Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Nocona Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Nocona Hills average
How we know this about Nocona Hills
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 Nocona Hills’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 Nocona Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Nocona Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Nocona Hills typically lands around Mar 9, 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 30.
When is the first frost in Nocona Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Nocona Hills typically arrives around Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 9, so the watching starts about Oct 24 — about 259 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Nocona Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Nocona Hills sees about 259 frost-free days — roughly Mar 9 through Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 30 to Nov 9, about 224 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Nocona Hills?
The federal record around Nocona Hills is light — 26 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (23), the nearest Brownfields record about 1.6 miles out — and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. Growing food here starts from a strong position; a soil test before new food beds settles any site-specific question.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Nocona Hills?
From about Oct 24 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 23 (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 23. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Nocona Hills's scale — its 8a band and its 259-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Nocona Hills'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 Nocona Hills’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Nocona Hills's own scale — its own ~259-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,331 acres it covers and 26 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Nocona Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Nocona Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 9 and Nov 23 and the ~259-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 26 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Nocona Hills, the closest Brownfields record about 1.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Nocona Hills's boundary and the 3,331 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~259-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Nocona Hills's own centroid, the Cross TimbersUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Nocona Hills's 3,331 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Montague County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Montague 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 Montague County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Nocona Hills's 3,331 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Nocona Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,331 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 1.6 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 Nocona Hills-wide figureread your own land →
More in Texas
Wider growing context
What grows across TexasNocona Hills sits outside our named growing regions, so Texas as a whole is its closest context here.