La Verkin, Utah, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in La Verkin, 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 La Verkin 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 La Verkin — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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La Verkin — the short answer
La Verkin, Utah: USDA zone 8b, about 281 days between hard freezes, across 9K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~281
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 9K 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 8b is La Verkin's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against La Verkin's 281-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in La Verkin
Each reading below is measured for La Verkin itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLa Verkin runs about 281 days between hard freezes — 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
MeasuredLa Verkin sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 La Verkin is in
La Verkin sits in the Colorado Plateaus — EPA Level III, inside the wider North American Deserts. That is read at La Verkin's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Washington County is mostly Mojave Basin and Range. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in La Verkin
Every plant below cleared La Verkin's own zone 8b and its 281-day season. Each card opens that plant's Utah profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in La Verkin?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
What's on the federal record near La Verkin
Closest first, within ~10 miles of La Verkin. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- (C-41-13)12cbb- 1Nitrate · 1.3 mi
- LA VERKIN CITY WATER SYSTEMPFAS · 1.7 mi
- L V SWIS INCBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- SILVER SPRING RV PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- HURRICANE MESA TEST SITESuperfund · 1.8 mi
- MAVERIK #435Underground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- DAVIS FOOD & DRUG FARMERS MARKET #4Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- CITY OF LA VERKINUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- SUNRISE MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- BIOSENSE MEDICAL WASTE MANAGEMENT, LLCBrownfields · 2.4 mi
- TOQUERVILLE MERCANTILEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- HURRICANE MESA TEST TRACKUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from La Verkin'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 La Verkin.
Total Sites
174
within ~10 miles of La Verkin
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of La Verkin
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of La Verkin
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around La Verkin, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of La Verkin — Mining (57 sites) and Nitrate (72 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in La Verkin
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 La Verkin average
Your land is one point inside La Verkin
Everything above resolves to La Verkin as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 9K 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 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 La Verkin Average
La Verkin Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across La Verkin
- ●One soil character for all of La Verkin
- ●Frost dates read at La Verkin's scale: Feb 19 to Nov 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not La Verkin's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in La Verkin
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in La Verkin, Utah — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that La Verkin averages can't show:
We read public map data around La Verkin — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the La Verkin average
How we know this about La Verkin
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 La Verkin’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 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 La Verkin
When does frost risk typically end in La Verkin?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in La Verkin typically lands around Feb 19, 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 12.
When is the first frost in La Verkin?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in La Verkin typically arrives around Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 13, so the watching starts about Oct 28 — about 281 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in La Verkin?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, La Verkin sees about 281 frost-free days — roughly Feb 19 through Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 12 to Nov 13, about 246 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in La Verkin?
The federal record around La Verkin is a meaningful one — 174 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (72), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.3 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 La Verkin?
From about Oct 28 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 27 (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 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at La Verkin's scale — its 8b band and its 281-day season. Your yard writes its own version of La Verkin'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 La Verkin’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at La Verkin's own scale — its own ~281-day season between 28°F freezes, the 8,732 acres it covers and 174 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- La Verkin's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- La Verkin's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 19 and Nov 27 and the ~281-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 174 documented contamination sites on the federal record near La Verkin, the closest Nitrate record about 1.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- La Verkin's boundary and the 8,732 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~281-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- La Verkin sits in the Colorado Plateaus — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so La Verkin's 8,732 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Washington County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Washington County
- The growing challenges every Utah grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Utah
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Washington County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among La Verkin's 8,732 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of La Verkin you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 8,732 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 1.3 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 La Verkin-wide figureread your own land →
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