Newport News city, in Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The conditions favor cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Newport News city lies within the Hampton Roads / Coastal Southeast Virginia and Tidewater & Chesapeake — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Newport News city holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Newport News 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 Newport News city — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Newport News city — the short answer
Newport News city, Virginia: USDA zone 8a, about 271 days between hard freezes, across 44K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Dec 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~271
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 44K 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 8a is Newport News city's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Newport News city's 271-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Newport News city
Across a year, Newport News city accumulates about 4,593 growing degree days above 50°F, about 859 more than the middle Virginia county — ahead of 129 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 1,666 hours below 45°F, 772 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 Newport News County
Across Newport News County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Tomotley, Craven, and Chickahominy are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.2–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Hydric soils
45%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Newport News city
The USDA soil survey maps 19% of Newport News city as moderately well drained — but another 22% drains differently: 16% poorly drained, 3% somewhat poorly drained.
Tomotley is the most extensive named soil at 18% of mapped acres, then Craven (16%) and Chickahominy (15%).
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 Newport News city
Each reading below is measured for Newport News 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 Newport News city are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group D — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Newport News city runs about pH 4.2–5.3, 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
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 45% of Newport News 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
MeasuredNewport News city runs about 271 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
The kind of country Newport News city is in
Newport News city sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Newport News city
We scored all 1,086 plants against Newport News city's own USDA zone 8a and its own 271-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 Newport News city?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Dec 4 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the calendar nearly circles: cool-season crops take the winter shift, and the next window is always close.
Documented around Newport News city
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Newport News city, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly439 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Newport News County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Newport News County — 652 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site. 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 Newport News 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 Newport News city
Closest first, across Newport News County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JAMES RIVER MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- PUMP STATION #121Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- WARWICK YACKT & COUNTRY CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HRSD - JAMES RIVER WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANTBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- JAMES RIVER TREATMENT PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CITY FARM-CITY FARM RDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- SEWAGE PUMP STATION #97Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- SEWAGE PUMP STATION #120Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- CLEAN HARBORS PERMANENT HHWBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- Menchville MarinaUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- MENCHVILLE MARINE SUPPLY CORPBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- CROWN VA-050 / FORMER SS 044006 EASTERN PROPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Newport News 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 Newport News city.
Sources Checked
across Newport News County
Severity Distribution
across Newport News County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Newport News city, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 410 sites across Newport News 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 Newport News 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 Newport News city average
Your land is one point inside Newport News city
Everything above resolves to Newport News city as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 44K 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 Newport News city Average
Newport News city Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Newport News city
- ●One soil character for all of Newport News city
- ●Frost dates read at Newport News city's scale: Mar 8 to Dec 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Newport News city's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Newport News city
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Newport News city, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Newport News city averages can't show:
We read public map data around Newport News city — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Newport News city average
How we know this about Newport News 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 Newport News city carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Newport News city
When does frost risk typically end in Newport News city?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Newport News city typically lands around Mar 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 Mar 29.
How long is the growing season in Newport News city?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Newport News city sees about 271 frost-free days — roughly Mar 8 through Dec 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 29 to Nov 20, about 236 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Newport News city?
The federal record around Newport News city is a meaningful one — 652 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (410), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Newport News city's scale — its 8a band and its 271-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Newport News 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 Newport News city’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Newport News city's own scale — its own ~271-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 652 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Newport News city's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Newport News city's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~271-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Newport News cityUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 652 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Newport News city's boundary and the 44,157 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~271-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Newport News city sitting wholly inside the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Newport News city for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
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 Newport News city — the ~271 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 Newport News city's 44,157 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 652 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 Newport News cityread your own land →