Hopewell, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Hopewell, 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 Hopewell 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 Hopewell — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Hopewell — the short answer
Hopewell, Virginia: USDA zone 8a, about 233 days between hard freezes, across 7K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~233
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 7K 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 8a is Hopewell's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hopewell's 233-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hopewell
Each reading below is measured for Hopewell itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHopewell runs about 233 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
MeasuredHopewell sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
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 Hopewell is in
Hopewell sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Hopewell's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hopewell city.
What Grows in Hopewell
Every plant below cleared Hopewell's own zone 8a and its 233-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hopewell?
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 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (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 Hopewell
Spotted lanternfly documented 7 miles from Hopewell, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Hopewell
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hopewell. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SONNY PEARSON TIRES INCBrownfields · 300 ft
- SONNY PEARSON TIRES INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- Parker Oil Company Inc HopewellUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- PARKER OIL COMPANY HOPEWELLToxics Release Inventory · 350 ft
- Sulaiman Panjwani - BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- SHERWIN-WILLIAMS #5797Brownfields · 700 ft
- TERMITE & PEST CONTROLUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- FIRESTONE COMPLETE AUTO CARE #002577Brownfields · 700 ft
- DAMRONS GULF SERVICE / ENGINE SPECIALTIESUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- DAWSONS ELECTRICAL CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- 7 Eleven 20558Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- RITE AID #3705Brownfields · 1300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hopewell'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 Hopewell.
Total Sites
881
within ~10 miles of Hopewell
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hopewell
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hopewell
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hopewell, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Hopewell — Toxics Release Inventory (82 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (542 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Hopewell
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 Hopewell average
Your land is one point inside Hopewell
Everything above resolves to Hopewell as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 7K 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 city 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 Hopewell Average
Hopewell Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Hopewell
- ●One soil character for all of Hopewell
- ●Frost dates read at Hopewell's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hopewell's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hopewell
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hopewell, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hopewell averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hopewell — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hopewell average
How we know this about Hopewell
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Hopewell’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Hopewell
When does frost risk typically end in Hopewell?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hopewell typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Hopewell?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hopewell typically arrives around Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 30, so the watching starts about Oct 14 — about 233 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hopewell?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hopewell sees about 233 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 30, about 198 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hopewell?
The federal record around Hopewell is a meaningful one — 881 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (542), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Hopewell?
From about Oct 14 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 13 (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 13. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hopewell's scale — its 8a band and its 233-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hopewell'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 Hopewell’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Hopewell's own scale — its own ~233-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,627 acres it covers and 881 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hopewell's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hopewell's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 13 and the ~233-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 881 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hopewell, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hopewell's boundary and the 6,627 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~233-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Hopewell's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Hopewelllydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Hopewell's 6,627 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hopewell County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hopewell 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 Hopewell County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hopewell's 6,627 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hopewell you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,627 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Hopewell-wide figureread your own land →
More in Virginia
Wider growing context
What grows across VirginiaHopewell sits outside our named growing regions, so Virginia as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides