Porter Heights, 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.
A short list that earns its place here — artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Porter Heights, 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 Porter Heights 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 Porter Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Porter Heights — the short answer
Porter Heights, Texas: USDA zone 9a, about 306 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 3
- Montgomery County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 6
- Montgomery County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~306
- Montgomery County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Montgomery County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Porter Heights's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Porter Heights's 306-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Porter Heights
Each reading below is measured for Porter Heights itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsPorter Heights runs about 306 days between hard freezes (read from Montgomery County, the closest normal to Porter Heights) — 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
MeasuredPorter Heights 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 Porter Heights is in
Porter Heights sits in the South Central Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Porter Heights's own centroid rather than borrowed from Montgomery County.
What Grows in Porter Heights
Every plant below cleared Porter Heights's own zone 9a and its 306-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Porter Heights?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 6 — 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 Porter Heights
Survey cells within 31 miles of Porter Heights checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 472 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Porter Heights
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Porter Heights. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NORTH HOUSTON AIRPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- BEST STOP 3Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- STOP N SERV 3Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- CHRISTINES CORNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- WAL-MART DC 7010Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- WAL-MART DISTRIBUTION CENTER #7010Brownfields · 1.9 mi
- PLAZA EVENTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- TIME MART 22Underground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- CORNER STORE 1913Underground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- TS-60-62-202Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- 1314 EXPRESS FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- COMMAND DRILLING PRODUCTSToxics Release Inventory · 3.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Porter Heights'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 Porter Heights.
Total Sites
534
within ~10 miles of Porter Heights
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Porter Heights
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Porter Heights
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Porter Heights, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Porter Heights — PFAS (34 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (339 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 Porter Heights
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 Porter Heights average
Your land is one point inside Porter Heights
Everything above resolves to Porter Heights as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 2K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Montgomery 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 Porter Heights Average
Porter Heights Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Porter Heights
- ●One soil character for all of Porter Heights
- ●Frost dates read at Porter Heights's scale: Feb 3 to Dec 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Porter Heights's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Porter Heights
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Porter Heights, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Porter Heights averages can't show:
We read public map data around Porter Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Porter Heights average
How we know this about Porter Heights
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 Montgomery 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 Porter Heights
When does frost risk typically end in Porter Heights?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Porter Heights typically lands around Feb 3, 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 24.
When is the first frost in Porter Heights?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Porter Heights typically arrives around Dec 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 22, so the watching starts about Nov 6 — about 306 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Porter Heights?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Porter Heights sees about 306 frost-free days — roughly Feb 3 through Dec 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Feb 24 to Nov 22, about 271 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Porter Heights?
The federal record around Porter Heights runs heavier than most — 534 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (339), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Porter Heights?
From about Nov 6 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Porter Heights's scale — its 9a band and its 306-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Porter Heights'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 Porter Heights’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Porter Heights's own scale — the 2,065 acres it covers and 534 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Porter Heights's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 534 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Porter Heights, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Porter Heights's boundary and the 2,065 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~306-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Porter Heights's own centroid, the South Central PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Porter Heights checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Porter Heights has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Montgomery County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Porter Heights's 2,065 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Montgomery County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Montgomery 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 Montgomery County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Porter Heights's 2,065 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Porter Heights you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,065 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 Porter Heights-wide figureread your own land →
More in Texas
Growing region
Nearby growing guides