Mason Neck, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Mason Neck, 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 Mason Neck 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 Mason Neck — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Mason Neck — the short answer
Mason Neck, Virginia: USDA zone 7b, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 9K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 9K 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 Mason Neck's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mason Neck's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mason Neck
Each reading below is measured for Mason Neck itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMason Neck runs about 240 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
MeasuredMason Neck 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 Mason Neck is in
Mason Neck sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mason Neck'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 Mason Neck
Every plant below cleared Mason Neck's own zone 7b and its 240-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mason Neck?
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 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 15 — 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 Mason Neck
Spotted lanternfly documented 6 miles from Mason Neck, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mason Neck
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mason Neck. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Gunston Hall PlantationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- 53T 51Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- MASON NECK STATE PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- MASON NECK ST PARKBrownfields · 2.2 mi
- SM-1 REACTOR DECOMMISIONING & DISMANTLEMENTBrownfields · 2.4 mi
- POHICK BAY REGIONAL GOLF COURSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- FORT BELVOIR RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITIES LLCBrownfields · 2.9 mi
- BELL ATLANTICUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- CH Bc 6Nitrate · 3.3 mi
- 53T 2 SOW 029Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- FORT BELVOIR NORTH AREAPFAS · 3.4 mi
- FORT BELVOIRPFAS · 3.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mason Neck'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 Mason Neck.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mason Neck
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mason Neck
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 Mason Neck
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 Mason Neck average
Your land is one point inside Mason Neck
Everything above resolves to Mason Neck as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 9K 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 Mason Neck Average
Mason Neck Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Mason Neck
- ●One soil character for all of Mason Neck
- ●Frost dates read at Mason Neck's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mason Neck's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mason Neck
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mason Neck, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mason Neck averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mason Neck — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mason Neck average
How we know this about Mason Neck
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 Mason Neck’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 Mason Neck
When does frost risk typically end in Mason Neck?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mason Neck typically lands around Mar 20, 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 10.
When is the first frost in Mason Neck?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mason Neck typically arrives around Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 1, so the watching starts about Oct 16 — about 240 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mason Neck?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mason Neck sees about 240 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Nov 1, about 205 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mason Neck?
The federal record around Mason Neck is a meaningful one — 1,135 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (571), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Mason Neck?
From about Oct 16 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 15 (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 15. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mason Neck's scale — its 7b band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mason Neck'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 Mason Neck’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mason Neck's own scale — its own ~240-day season between 28°F freezes, the 8,870 acres it covers and 1,135 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mason Neck's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mason Neck's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 20 and Nov 15 and the ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,135 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mason Neck, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mason Neck's boundary and the 8,870 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~240-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Mason Neck sits in the Southeastern Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Mason Necklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Mason Neck's 8,870 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 Mason Neck's 8,870 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mason Neck you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 8,870 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Mason Neck-wide figureread your own land →