Colonial Heights city, in Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Colonial Heights city holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Colonial Heights city, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Colonial Heights city — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Colonial Heights city — the short answer
Colonial Heights city, Virginia: USDA zone 7b, about 232 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~232
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 5K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 7b is Colonial Heights city's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Colonial Heights city's 232-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Colonial Heights city
Across a year, Colonial Heights city accumulates about 4,289 growing degree days above 50°F, about 555 more than the middle Virginia county — ahead of 112 of Virginia’s 133 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 1,938 hours below 45°F, 500 fewer than the Virginia middle of 2,438. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Colonial Heights County
Across Colonial Heights County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Appling, Mattaponi, and Roanoke are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–6.3, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
57%
Hydric soils
17%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Colonial Heights city
The USDA soil survey maps 58% of Colonial Heights city as well drained — but another 40% drains differently: 24% moderately well drained, 16% poorly drained.
Appling is the most extensive named soil at 54% of mapped acres, then Mattaponi (20%) and Roanoke (17%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Colonial Heights city
Each reading below is measured for Colonial Heights city itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Colonial Heights city are well drained, in hydrologic group B — ground that drains quickly.
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
MeasuredTopsoil across Colonial Heights city runs about pH 5.0–6.3, on the acidic side.
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
MeasuredAbout 17% of Colonial Heights city is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
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
Season length
MeasuredColonial Heights city runs about 232 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
The kind of country Colonial Heights city is in
Colonial Heights city sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Colonial Heights city
We scored all 1,086 plants against Colonial Heights city's own USDA zone 7b and its own 232-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile.
Is it too late to plant in Colonial Heights city?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 13 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Colonial Heights city
Spotted lanternfly documented 10 miles from Colonial Heights city, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Colonial Heights County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Colonial Heights County — 80 documented sites across 3 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Colonial Heights County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Colonial Heights city
Closest first, across Colonial Heights County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Sheetz 321Underground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- Colonial Heights Utility Department WWPSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- SHEETZ #321Brownfields · 1100 ft
- ZIPMART #94Brownfields · 1200 ft
- Circle K #2723109Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- HOME DEPOT STORE #4633Brownfields · 1300 ft
- 7 Eleven Inc. 40005Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- Colonial Heights Convalescent CareUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- CitgoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Colonial Heights Police DepartmentUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- COLONIAL HEIGHTS HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- Southpark Mall - (Former) Dillards Dept StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Colonial Heights city'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 Colonial Heights city.
Total Sites
80
across Colonial Heights County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Colonial Heights County
Severity Distribution
across Colonial Heights County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Colonial Heights city, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 56 sites across Colonial Heights County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Colonial Heights city
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 Colonial Heights city average
Your land is one point inside Colonial Heights city
Everything above resolves to Colonial Heights city as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 5K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Colonial Heights city Average
Colonial Heights city Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Colonial Heights city
- ●One soil character for all of Colonial Heights city
- ●Frost dates read at Colonial Heights city's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Colonial Heights city's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Colonial Heights city
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Colonial Heights city, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Colonial Heights city averages can't show:
We read public map data around Colonial Heights city — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Colonial Heights city average
How we know this about Colonial Heights city
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Colonial Heights city carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Colonial Heights city
When does frost risk typically end in Colonial Heights city?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Colonial Heights city typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
How long is the growing season in Colonial Heights city?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Colonial Heights city sees about 232 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 30, about 197 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Colonial Heights city?
The federal record around Colonial Heights city shows 80 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (56), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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.
Everything above is measured at Colonial Heights city's scale — its 7b band and its 232-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Colonial Heights city's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Virginia's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Colonial Heights city’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Colonial Heights city's own scale — its own ~232-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 80 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Colonial Heights city's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Colonial Heights city's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~232-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Colonial Heights cityUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 80 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Colonial Heights city's boundary and the 4,812 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~232-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Colonial Heights city sitting wholly inside the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Virginia grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Virginia
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Colonial Heights city — the ~232 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Colonial Heights city's 4,812 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 80 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Colonial Heights cityread your own land →