Wimberley, Texas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 Wimberley, 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 Wimberley 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 Wimberley — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Wimberley — the short answer
Wimberley, Texas: USDA zone 9a, about 289 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 16
- Hays County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 2
- Hays County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~289
- Hays County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- City area
- 6K 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 Hays County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 9a is Wimberley's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Wimberley's 289-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Wimberley
Each reading below is measured for Wimberley itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsWimberley runs about 289 days between hard freezes (read from Hays County, the closest normal to Wimberley) — 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
MeasuredWimberley 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 Wimberley is in
Wimberley sits in the Edwards Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Wimberley's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hays County.
What Grows in Wimberley
Every plant below cleared Wimberley's own zone 9a and its 289-day season. Each card opens that plant's Texas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Wimberley?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 2 — 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 Wimberley
Survey cells within 31 miles of Wimberley checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 638 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Wimberley
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Wimberley. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LR-68-08-102Nitrate · 1000 ft
- LR-68-08-1 (G-18)Nitrate · 1900 ft
- LR-68-30-904Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- WIMBERLEY TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- THE OIL EXCHANGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- BROOKSHIRE BROTHERS 67Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- WIMBERLEY QUICK MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- WIMBERLEY SHAMROCKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- HEB 708 WIMBERLEYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- KWIK CHEK 57Underground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- 7-ELEVEN STORE 40568Underground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- STRIPES 1515Underground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Wimberley'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 Wimberley.
Total Sites
119
within ~10 miles of Wimberley
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
56 nitrate monitoring sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Wimberley
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Wimberley
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Wimberley, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Wimberley — PFAS (6 sites) and Nitrate (56 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.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Wimberley
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 Wimberley average
Your land is one point inside Wimberley
Everything above resolves to Wimberley as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 6K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Hays 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 Wimberley Average
Wimberley Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Wimberley
- ●One soil character for all of Wimberley
- ●Frost dates read at Wimberley's scale: Feb 16 to Dec 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Wimberley's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Wimberley
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Wimberley, Texas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Wimberley averages can't show:
We read public map data around Wimberley — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wimberley average
How we know this about Wimberley
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 Hays 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 Wimberley
When does frost risk typically end in Wimberley?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Wimberley typically lands around Feb 16, 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 9.
When is the first frost in Wimberley?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Wimberley typically arrives around Dec 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 18, so the watching starts about Nov 2 — about 289 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Wimberley?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Wimberley sees about 289 frost-free days — roughly Feb 16 through Dec 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 9 to Nov 18, about 254 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Wimberley?
The federal record around Wimberley is a meaningful one — 119 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (57), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.2 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 Wimberley?
From about Nov 2 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Wimberley's scale — its 9a band and its 289-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Wimberley'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 Wimberley’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Wimberley's own scale — the 5,731 acres it covers and 119 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Wimberley's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- 119 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Wimberley, the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Wimberley's boundary and the 5,731 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~289-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Wimberley's own centroid, the Edwards PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Wimberley checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Wimberley has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Hays County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Wimberley's 5,731 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hays County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hays 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 Hays County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Wimberley's 5,731 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Wimberley you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,731 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 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 Wimberley-wide figureread your own land →
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