Clinchco, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
The conditions favor cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Clinchco, 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 Clinchco 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 Clinchco — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Clinchco — the short answer
Clinchco, Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 202 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~202
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 7a is Clinchco's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Clinchco's 202-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Clinchco
Each reading below is measured for Clinchco itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredClinchco runs about 202 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
MeasuredClinchco sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Clinchco is in
Clinchco sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Clinchco's own centroid rather than borrowed from Dickenson County.
What Grows in Clinchco
Every plant below cleared Clinchco's own zone 7a and its 202-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Clinchco?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Clinchco
Survey cells within 31 miles of Clinchco checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 41 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Clinchco
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Clinchco. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Triple T #1Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Dig It Fuel & Rental LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- Clinchfield Coal McClure #2 Mine & RefuseUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- Dickenson Co Solid Waste- Honey Camp LandfillUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- CSX - Seaboard System RR Caney SwitchUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- Fourway Super QuikUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- Kwikway MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- HERITAGE HALL-PHIPPS NURSING HOMEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- VDOT Fremont Area HeadquartersUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- WAREHOUSE NO 6Underground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- Mountain Trail Market LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.2 mi
- JW Flannagan Dam - Shop Compound AreaUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Clinchco'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 Clinchco.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Clinchco
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Clinchco
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Clinchco, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 92 sites within ~10 miles of Clinchco. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Clinchco
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 Clinchco average
Your land is one point inside Clinchco
Everything above resolves to Clinchco as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Clinchco Average
Clinchco Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Clinchco
- ●One soil character for all of Clinchco
- ●Frost dates read at Clinchco's scale: Apr 8 to Oct 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Clinchco's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Clinchco
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Clinchco, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Clinchco averages can't show:
We read public map data around Clinchco — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Clinchco average
How we know this about Clinchco
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 Clinchco’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 Clinchco
When does frost risk typically end in Clinchco?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Clinchco typically lands around Apr 8, 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 Apr 29.
When is the first frost in Clinchco?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Clinchco typically arrives around Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 13, so the watching starts about Sep 27 — about 202 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Clinchco?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Clinchco sees about 202 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 13, about 167 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Clinchco?
The federal record around Clinchco shows 104 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (92), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Clinchco?
From about Sep 27 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 Oct 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 Oct 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Clinchco's scale — its 7a band and its 202-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Clinchco'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 Clinchco’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Clinchco's own scale — its own ~202-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,788 acres it covers and 104 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Clinchco's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Clinchco's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Oct 27 and the ~202-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 104 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Clinchco, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Clinchco's boundary and the 1,788 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~202-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Clinchco's own centroid, the Central AppalachiansUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Clinchco checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Clinchco's 1,788 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Dickenson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Dickenson County
- The growing challenges every Virginia grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Virginia
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Dickenson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Clinchco's 1,788 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Clinchco you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,788 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 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 Clinchco-wide figureread your own land →
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