Lake Land'Or, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Lake Land'Or, 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 Lake Land'Or 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 Lake Land'Or — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lake Land'Or — the short answer
Lake Land'Or, Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 7a is Lake Land'Or's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lake Land'Or's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lake Land'Or
Each reading below is measured for Lake Land'Or itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLake Land'Or runs about 226 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
MeasuredLake Land'Or 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 Lake Land'Or is in
Lake Land'Or sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lake Land'Or's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Caroline County is mostly Southeastern Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Lake Land'Or
Every plant below cleared Lake Land'Or's own zone 7a and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lake Land'Or?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 8 — 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 Lake Land'Or
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Lake Land'Or, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lake Land'Or
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lake Land'Or. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LAKE LAND 'ORUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Duke Property - former Store and Gas StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- TAYLOR FIBER INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- L L Carter and Son IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Ladysmith Elementary SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- James W. GatewoodUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- AMOCO OIL CO S/S 866Underground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Ladysmith SubstationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #10769Brownfields · 2.1 mi
- Lady Smith CornerUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- Former Truck Repair/Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- V2X LADYSMITH BLAST & PAINT FACILITYBrownfields · 2.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lake Land'Or'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 Lake Land'Or.
Total Sites
178
within ~10 miles of Lake Land'Or
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lake Land'Or
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lake Land'Or
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lake Land'Or, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 47 sites within ~10 miles of Lake Land'Or. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Lake Land'Or
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 Lake Land'Or average
Your land is one point inside Lake Land'Or
Everything above resolves to Lake Land'Or as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Lake Land'Or Average
Lake Land'Or Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Lake Land'Or
- ●One soil character for all of Lake Land'Or
- ●Frost dates read at Lake Land'Or's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lake Land'Or's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lake Land'Or
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lake Land'Or, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lake Land'Or averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lake Land'Or — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lake Land'Or average
How we know this about Lake Land'Or
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 Lake Land'Or’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 Lake Land'Or
When does frost risk typically end in Lake Land'Or?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Land'Or 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.
When is the first frost in Lake Land'Or?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Land'Or typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lake Land'Or?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lake Land'Or sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Oct 25, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lake Land'Or?
The federal record around Lake Land'Or shows 178 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (106), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Lake Land'Or?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lake Land'Or's scale — its 7a band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lake Land'Or'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 Lake Land'Or’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lake Land'Or's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,895 acres it covers and 178 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lake Land'Or's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lake Land'Or's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 27 and Nov 8 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 178 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lake Land'Or, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lake Land'Or's boundary and the 2,895 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Lake Land'Or sits in the Piedmont — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Lake Land'Orlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lake Land'Or's 2,895 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Caroline County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Caroline 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 Caroline County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lake Land'Or's 2,895 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lake Land'Or you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,895 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Lake Land'Or-wide figureread your own land →
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