Culpeper County, in Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Culpeper County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Culpeper County, 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 Culpeper County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Culpeper County — the short answer
Culpeper County, Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 223 days between hard freezes, across 243K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~223
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 243K 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 7a is Culpeper County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Culpeper County's 223-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Culpeper County
Across a year, Culpeper County accumulates about 3,700 growing degree days above 50°F, about 34 fewer than the middle Virginia county — ahead of 62 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.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Culpeper County
Across Culpeper County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Edgemont, Rhodhiss, and Glenelg are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.7–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
12%
Hydric soils
7%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Culpeper County
The USDA soil survey maps 71% of Culpeper County as well drained — but another 28% drains differently: 20% somewhat poorly drained, 6% poorly drained.
Edgemont is the most extensive named soil at 7% of mapped acres, then Rhodhiss (7%) and Glenelg (6%).
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 Culpeper County
Each reading below is measured for Culpeper County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Culpeper County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Culpeper County runs about pH 4.7–5.3, 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
Season length
MeasuredCulpeper County runs about 223 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
MeasuredCulpeper County 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 Culpeper County is in
Culpeper County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Northern Piedmont (88%) and Piedmont (12%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Culpeper County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Culpeper County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 223-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 Culpeper County?
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 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Culpeper County
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Culpeper County, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Culpeper County
USGS estimates 55,150 lb of Glyphosate on Culpeper County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (14,984 lb) and Simazine (7,036 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Culpeper County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Culpeper County — 297 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 2 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Culpeper County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Culpeper County
Closest first, across Culpeper County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CULPEPER WOOD PRESERVERS, INC.Superfund · 1400 ft
- CULPEPER WOOD PRESERVERS, INC.Brownfields · 1400 ft
- CULPEPER WOOD PRESERVERS, INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 1400 ft
- Culpeper Wood PreserversUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- County Farm Service IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- QUARLES PETROLEUM - CULPEPER BULK PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 1700 ft
- CULPEPER BULK PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Quarles Culpeper Bulk PlantUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- Martins Foods 6454Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- CROWELL BROTHERS CONSTRUCTION COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CONTINENTAL MOTOR INNS; INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Culpeper Petroleum CooperativeUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Culpeper County'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 Culpeper County.
Severity Distribution
across Culpeper County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Culpeper County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 189 sites across Culpeper 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 Culpeper County
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 Culpeper County average
Your land is one point inside Culpeper County
Everything above resolves to Culpeper County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 243K 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 Culpeper County Average
Culpeper County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Culpeper County
- ●One soil character for all of Culpeper County
- ●Frost dates read at Culpeper County's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Culpeper County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Culpeper County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Culpeper County, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Culpeper County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Culpeper County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Culpeper County average
How we know this about Culpeper County
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 Culpeper County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Culpeper County
When does frost risk typically end in Culpeper County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Culpeper County typically lands around Mar 27, 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 17.
How long is the growing season in Culpeper County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Culpeper County sees about 223 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Oct 22, about 188 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Culpeper County?
The federal record around Culpeper County is a meaningful one — 297 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (189), the nearest Superfund record about 0.3 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.
Everything above is measured at Culpeper County's scale — its 7a band and its 223-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Culpeper County'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 Culpeper County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Culpeper County's own scale — its own ~223-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 297 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Culpeper County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Culpeper County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~223-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Culpeper CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 297 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Superfund record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Culpeper County's boundary and the 242,667 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~223-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Culpeper County spans, Northern Piedmont the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Culpeper County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Culpeper County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
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 Culpeper County — the ~223 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 Culpeper County's 242,667 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 297 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 Culpeper Countyread your own land →