Floris, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Floris, 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 Floris 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 Floris — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Floris — the short answer
Floris, 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 Floris's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Floris's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Floris
Each reading below is measured for Floris itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFloris 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
MeasuredFloris 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 Floris is in
Floris sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Floris'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 Floris
Every plant below cleared Floris'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 Floris?
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 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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Floris
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Floris, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Floris
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Floris. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BELL ATLANTICUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- 7-Eleven Inc 40055Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- FRYING PAN FIRE STATION #36Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- INTERNATIONAL POINTBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- International PointUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- McLearen ShellUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- MERIT CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #2155Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- DULLES INTERNATIONAL MOTORSPORTBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- RAYTHEON TRAINING INCBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- STERLING AUTOBODY CENTERSBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- J C PennyUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Floris'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 Floris.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Floris
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Floris
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.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in Floris
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 Floris average
Your land is one point inside Floris
Everything above resolves to Floris 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 Floris Average
Floris Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Floris
- ●One soil character for all of Floris
- ●Frost dates read at Floris's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Floris's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Floris
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Floris, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Floris averages can't show:
We read public map data around Floris — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Floris average
How we know this about Floris
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 Floris’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 Floris
When does frost risk typically end in Floris?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Floris 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 Floris?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Floris 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 Floris?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Floris 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 Floris?
The federal record around Floris is a meaningful one — 1,731 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (823), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Floris?
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 Floris's scale — its 7b band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Floris'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 Floris’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Floris's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,775 acres it covers and 1,731 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Floris's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Floris's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 7 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,731 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Floris, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Floris's boundary and the 1,775 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Floris sits in the Northern Piedmont — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Florislydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Floris's 1,775 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 Floris's 1,775 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Floris you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,775 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Floris-wide figureread your own land →