The Thomasville Red Hills spans USDA hardiness zone 9a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Between Thomasville and Tallahassee, the flat sandy coastal plain breaks into rolling red-clay uplands — the Red Hills, the quail-plantation and longleaf-pine country that straddles the Georgia–Florida line. Where the surrounding Wiregrass flatwoods run to bright sand, here fertile clay-loam ridges hold moisture and nutrients, warmed by zone 9a and one of the longest frost-free seasons in the region — the ground behind the Southeast's pecan groves and pine-plantation forestry. It's a named soil-and-terrain contrast growers search for by name, not just another stretch of coastal plain. Well-matched crops include okra, tomato, sweet potato, and jalapeno, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Your yard isn't all of the Thomasville Red Hills.
The Thomasville Red Hills spans USDA zones 9a, but your parcel sits in exactly one — and slope, tree cover, and low spots nudge it further. 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 Thomasville Red Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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The Thomasville Red Hills — the short answer
The Thomasville Red Hills: USDA zones 9a, 296–304 frost-free days, across 2 states.
- USDA zones
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023, aggregated over the footprint
- Frost-free season
- 296–304 days
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- Counties
- 3
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Region type
- County cluster
- Growable Ground growing-region registry
Region boundary: Growable Ground growing-region registry — curated county clusters, EPA Level III ecoregions, and town clusters drawn finer than any county. Where a region publishes no measured season, no season figure is shown.
Hardiness Zone Range
What Grows in the Thomasville Red Hills
Plants matched to the Thomasville Red Hills' USDA zones 9a, ordered by how much hardiness margin each has across the region — the ones with room to spare at both ends of this band lead. Each links to its full growing profile.
Native Plants of the Thomasville Red Hills
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in all 2 states this region crosses, kept only where the published hardiness range meets the Thomasville Red Hills’s USDA zones 9a — closest range match first. Presence is recorded by state, so a plant can be documented across the state and still be scarce in your corner of the region.
The ground across the Thomasville Red Hills
The USDA soil survey maps this ground county by county. These are those records weighted by land area across three member counties — this region’s own profile, not a state figure.
The ground is predominantly Ultisols, at 78% of mapped acres, followed by Entisols (13%), Histosols (3%) and Spodosols (3%). Six soil orders appear somewhere inside the footprint, which is the honest reason a regional soil answer only goes so far. The most extensive named soils are Tifton, Orangeburg, and Dothan.
55% of those acres are well drained, and another 18% poorly drained, 8% somewhat poorly drained. Topsoil pH runs 4.7–5.8 between the lowest and the highest county on record. 45% of the footprint is classed prime farmland.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Topsoil pH
4.7–5.8
Hydric soils
20%
Soil changes across a driveway, so which of these your own ground sits on is a parcel question rather than a regional one. Leon County holds the most wetland ground here, at 21% — soil types explained.
USDA NRCS SSURGO via Soil Data Access
What this means for growing in the Thomasville Red Hills
The soil survey reads this ground county by county, and the readings above are those records summed across the Thomasville Red Hills. Here is what they mean for a garden here — and the move an experienced grower makes about each one.
Drainage
From county records55% of the mapped acres across the Thomasville Red Hills are well drained — ground that drains quickly. That is area-weighted across all three of its mapped counties.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
From county recordsTopsoil across the Thomasville Red Hills runs pH 4.7–5.8 — acidic in all three of them.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
From county recordsAbout 20% of the ground across the Thomasville Red Hills is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil. Leon County carries the most, at 21%.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across the Thomasville Red Hills — and how to grow with it.
Across the Thomasville Red Hills' 3 counties the federal record holds 1,652 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks (951), Brownfields (447) and Nitrate (208). The heaviest single county is Leon County, with 1,230.
That is a regional count, not a reading of any one lot — proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis. Open the map outlined to the Thomasville Red Hills to see which records sit where you actually grow.
Sources Checked
Summed across the 3 counties in the Thomasville Red Hills
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Your land is one point inside the Thomasville Red Hills
Everything above resolves to the Thomasville Red Hills as a whole — a footprint spanning USDA zones 9a. Your parcel sits in exactly one of them. 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 region 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 regional average.
Your Lot vs the Thomasville Red Hills Average
Thomasville Red Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Thomasville Red Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Thomasville Red Hills
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Thomasville Red Hills' 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in the Thomasville Red Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in the Thomasville Red Hills — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, contamination, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Thomasville Red Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around The Thomasville Red Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Thomasville Red Hills average
How we know this about the Thomasville Red Hills
The boundary: a cluster of neighboring counties. Growing regions have no official boundary, so this footprint is our published one, and every figure on this page was measured over the counties inside it rather than borrowed from the state around it.
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, aggregated across the footprint; the growing season from NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS 1991–2020 28°F normals, read at each member’s own record; boundaries from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination record from the federal sources named in that beat above; the soil from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, read at each member county’s own record and weighted to this footprint by land area. Where a member carries no record of its own, it is absent from the figure rather than filled in.
Common questions about the Thomasville Red Hills
What hardiness zone is the Thomasville Red Hills?
The Thomasville Red Hills spans USDA hardiness zones 9a, aggregated from the USDA Agricultural Research Service Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 across the region's counties. Zones reflect average annual extreme minimum temperatures from 1991–2020 data.
How long is the growing season in the Thomasville Red Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, the Thomasville Red Hills' counties mostly run 297 to 301 frost-free days, median 297 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991–2020, over 3 member counties). That 4-day spread is the honest read — no single season describes 3 counties, and each county guide below carries its own.
When does frost risk end in the Thomasville Red Hills?
Across the Thomasville Red Hills, the middle half of member counties see their last 28°F hard freeze between Feb 12 and Feb 15 (median Feb 14), and their first fall freeze between Dec 8 and Dec 9. Those are hard freezes, not the last light frost: tender transplants wait for about Mar 7, and elevation decides which end of a 3-day spread you garden in.
What grows well in the Thomasville Red Hills?
The Thomasville Red Hills' conditions suit plants such as Okra, Tomato, Sweet Potato, Jalapeno, Collard Greens, Loquat. What actually thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage — we score each plant against the real conditions at your address.
How is the Thomasville Red Hills defined?
The Thomasville Red Hills is defined here as a curated cluster of 3 neighboring counties that share a growing character. Growing regions have no official boundary, so this footprint is our published one — every county in it is named on this page.
Which states does the Thomasville Red Hills cover?
The Thomasville Red Hills spans Florida and Georgia. Each state's full growing guide is linked on this page.
What other growing regions cover the same states?
Appalachia, Piedmont, Blue Ridge, Gulf Coast, Vidalia / South Georgia, and Florida Panhandle share at least one state with the Thomasville Red Hills. Growing regions overlap and interlock — a single address can sit inside more than one, which is why the precise read is always the parcel, not the region.
What this page reads at the Thomasville Red Hills’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at the Thomasville Red Hills' own scale — the zone 9a band across its footprint, a median 297-day season across its 3 counties and 1,652 documented federal contamination records across its 3 counties, 1,230 of them in Leon County alone; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The USDA hardiness band 9a aggregated across all 3 counties in the footprintUSDA PHZM 2023
- The boundary itself — the 3 counties this region is curated fromGrowable Ground subregion registry
- The growing character that makes this region distinct from the states it crossesGrowable Ground subregion registry
- The 28°F season across the footprint — the middle half of its 3 counties run 297 to 301 frost-free days, median 297NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- The federal contamination record over the whole footprint — 1,652 documented federal contamination records across its 3 counties, 1,230 of them in Leon County aloneEPA, USGS and USDA federal site records
- The soil order mix across the footprint — 78% Ultisols, topsoil pH 4.7–5.8, area-weighted across its 3 mapped countiesUSDA NRCS SSURGO
Inherited from a wider read
- The candidate plant list — all 2 member states' curated sets, merged and filtered to zones 9afrom Florida and Georgia
What this page can’t tell you
- Which end of the 4-day range your ground sits at — 297 days at one extreme, 301 at the other, decided mostly by elevationfrost dates explained →
- Which of those soils your own ground sits on — the survey maps them county-wide, and they change across a drivewaysoil types explained →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on one specific lotwhy one lot differs from the next →
Explore the Thomasville Red Hills
State growing guides
Counties in this region
Other growing regions across Florida and Georgia
The vast eastern mountain region of steep hollows, thin acidic soils, and short upland seasons — apples, brambles, ramps, and forest crops on hard-won ground. (Union of the core Appalachian ecoregions.)
The rolling foothill belt between the Appalachians and the coastal plain, defined by heavy red clay soils that reward amendment and drainage. (Southern Piedmont; the Northern Piedmont is a separate ecoregion.)
The high, cool, forested spine of the southern Appalachians — layered ridges, acidic mountain loams, and a short upland season suited to apples and cold-hardy crops.
The humid, near-frost-free coastal rim of the Gulf of Mexico — long seasons, sandy and alluvial soils, heat, and hurricanes shaping what thrives. (Representative coastal counties, not exhaustive.)
The federally designated Vidalia sweet-onion belt of Georgia's coastal plain — USDA zones 8b to 9a and a long frost-free season of roughly 290 days, from a median last frost near February 18 to a first frost around December 4.
North Florida's mild-winter coastal plain of sandy and clay soils — a transition zone growing both Southern staples and subtropical fruit.