Lake Wilderness, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Lake Wilderness, 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 Wilderness 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 Wilderness — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lake Wilderness — the short answer
Lake Wilderness, Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 228 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- 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 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~228
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Wilderness's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lake Wilderness's 228-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lake Wilderness
Each reading below is measured for Lake Wilderness itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLake Wilderness runs about 228 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 Wilderness 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 Wilderness is in
Lake Wilderness sits in the Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lake Wilderness's own centroid rather than borrowed from Spotsylvania County.
What Grows in Lake Wilderness
Every plant below cleared Lake Wilderness's own zone 7a and its 228-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lake Wilderness?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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 8 — 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 Lake Wilderness
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Lake Wilderness, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lake Wilderness
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lake Wilderness. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Lakeview MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- 7-ELEVEN, INC. #19321Brownfields · 1.5 mi
- 7 Eleven 19321Underground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- Sheetz #323Underground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- SHEETZ, INC. #323Brownfields · 1.5 mi
- FAS MART INC STORE NO 48Brownfields · 1.5 mi
- FAST MART #48Underground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- EMC SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- LOCUST GROVE VARIETYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- LEES WILDERNESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- Greenwood ProspectMining · 2.7 mi
- THE COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lake Wilderness'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 Wilderness.
Total Sites
113
within ~10 miles of Lake Wilderness
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lake Wilderness
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lake Wilderness
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lake Wilderness, Mining runs higher than the national average — 19 sites within ~10 miles of Lake Wilderness. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Lake Wilderness
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 Wilderness average
Your land is one point inside Lake Wilderness
Everything above resolves to Lake Wilderness as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Wilderness Average
Lake Wilderness Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Lake Wilderness
- ●One soil character for all of Lake Wilderness
- ●Frost dates read at Lake Wilderness's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lake Wilderness's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lake Wilderness
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lake Wilderness, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lake Wilderness averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lake Wilderness — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lake Wilderness average
How we know this about Lake Wilderness
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 Wilderness’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 Wilderness
When does frost risk typically end in Lake Wilderness?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Wilderness 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 Lake Wilderness?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Wilderness 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 228 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lake Wilderness?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lake Wilderness sees about 228 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 25, about 193 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lake Wilderness?
The federal record around Lake Wilderness runs heavier than most — 113 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (64), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.5 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Lake Wilderness?
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 Wilderness's scale — its 7a band and its 228-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lake Wilderness'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 Wilderness’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lake Wilderness's own scale — its own ~228-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,345 acres it covers and 113 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lake Wilderness's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lake Wilderness's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 8 and the ~228-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 113 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lake Wilderness, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lake Wilderness's boundary and the 1,345 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~228-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lake Wilderness's own centroid, the PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Lake Wildernesslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lake Wilderness's 1,345 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Spotsylvania County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Spotsylvania 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 Spotsylvania County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lake Wilderness's 1,345 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lake Wilderness you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,345 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.5 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 Wilderness-wide figureread your own land →