Dranesville, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Dranesville, 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 Dranesville 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 Dranesville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Dranesville — the short answer
Dranesville, Virginia: USDA zone 7b, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- 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 7b is Dranesville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dranesville's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dranesville
Each reading below is measured for Dranesville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDranesville runs about 224 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
MeasuredDranesville sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Dranesville is in
Dranesville sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Dranesville's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Fairfax County is mostly Piedmont. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Dranesville
Every plant below cleared Dranesville's own zone 7b and its 224-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dranesville?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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 Dranesville
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Dranesville, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Dranesville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dranesville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 52V 23Nitrate · 2100 ft
- Corbalis Water Treatment PlantUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CORBALIS WATER TREATMENT PLANTBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- RUNYON R RUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- HERNDON HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- HERNDON HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Mountaineer Piping CorporationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- AT & T-DRANESVILLE-VA4300Brownfields · 1.0 mi
- DRANESVILLE AUTO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- TEST NEW TRIFID SYNC FACILITYToxics Release Inventory · 1.1 mi
- Town Center CleanersUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- PMG NVA Shell 9047Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dranesville'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 Dranesville.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dranesville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dranesville
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Dranesville
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 Dranesville average
Your land is one point inside Dranesville
Everything above resolves to Dranesville 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 Dranesville Average
Dranesville Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Dranesville
- ●One soil character for all of Dranesville
- ●Frost dates read at Dranesville's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dranesville's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dranesville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dranesville, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dranesville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dranesville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dranesville average
How we know this about Dranesville
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 Dranesville’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 Dranesville
When does frost risk typically end in Dranesville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dranesville typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Dranesville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dranesville typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 224 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dranesville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dranesville sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 24, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dranesville?
The federal record around Dranesville is a meaningful one — 1,456 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (691), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.4 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 Dranesville?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dranesville's scale — its 7b band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dranesville'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 Dranesville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Dranesville's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,457 acres it covers and 1,456 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dranesville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dranesville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 7 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,456 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dranesville, the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dranesville's boundary and the 2,457 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Dranesville sits in the Northern Piedmont — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Dranesvillelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Dranesville's 2,457 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Fairfax County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Fairfax 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 Fairfax County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dranesville's 2,457 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dranesville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,457 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 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 Dranesville-wide figureread your own land →