Stanardsville, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Expect cabbage, prickly pear, 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 Stanardsville, 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 Stanardsville 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 Stanardsville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Stanardsville — the short answer
Stanardsville, Virginia: USDA zone 7b, about 230 days between hard freezes, across 231 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~230
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 231 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 Stanardsville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Stanardsville's 230-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Stanardsville
Each reading below is measured for Stanardsville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredStanardsville runs about 230 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
MeasuredStanardsville 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 Stanardsville is in
Stanardsville sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Stanardsville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Greene County.
What Grows in Stanardsville
Every plant below cleared Stanardsville's own zone 7b and its 230-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Stanardsville?
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 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — 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 Stanardsville
Spotted lanternfly documented 6 miles from Stanardsville, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Stanardsville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Stanardsville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- EMERGENCY GENERATORUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- THE MASTERGEAR CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- Greene County School Bus GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- SKYLINE GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- SHANK BLDGUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- SPRINT/STANARDSVILLE CENTRAL OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- SHIFFLETTS SERVICE BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- NATHANIEL GREEN DEV CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- RAPIDAN SERVICE AUTHORITY PUMP STATION 1Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Stanardsville BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Bray Estate OccuranceMining · 0.8 mi
- Paytons GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Stanardsville'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 Stanardsville.
Total Sites
106
within ~10 miles of Stanardsville
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Stanardsville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Stanardsville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Stanardsville, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Stanardsville — Underground Storage Tanks (75 sites) and Mining (6 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Stanardsville
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 Stanardsville average
Your land is one point inside Stanardsville
Everything above resolves to Stanardsville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 231 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 Stanardsville Average
Stanardsville Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Stanardsville
- ●One soil character for all of Stanardsville
- ●Frost dates read at Stanardsville's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Stanardsville's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Stanardsville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Stanardsville, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Stanardsville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Stanardsville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Stanardsville average
How we know this about Stanardsville
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 Stanardsville’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 Stanardsville
When does frost risk typically end in Stanardsville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Stanardsville typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Stanardsville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Stanardsville typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 230 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Stanardsville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Stanardsville sees about 230 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 28, about 195 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Stanardsville?
The federal record around Stanardsville shows 106 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (75), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Stanardsville?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Stanardsville's scale — its 7b band and its 230-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Stanardsville'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 Stanardsville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Stanardsville's own scale — its own ~230-day season between 28°F freezes, the 231 acres it covers and 106 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Stanardsville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Stanardsville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 11 and the ~230-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 106 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Stanardsville, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Stanardsville's boundary and the 231 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~230-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Stanardsville's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Stanardsvillelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Stanardsville's 231 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Greene County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Greene 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 Greene County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Stanardsville's 231 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Stanardsville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 231 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 Stanardsville-wide figureread your own land →