Woodlawn, Virginia, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Woodlawn, 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 Woodlawn 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 Woodlawn — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Woodlawn — the short answer
Woodlawn, Virginia: USDA zone 7a, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 12K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~214
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 12K 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 Woodlawn's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Woodlawn's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Woodlawn
Each reading below is measured for Woodlawn itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWoodlawn runs about 214 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
MeasuredWoodlawn 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 Woodlawn is in
Woodlawn sits in the Blue Ridge — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Woodlawn's own centroid rather than borrowed from Carroll County.
What Grows in Woodlawn
Every plant below cleared Woodlawn's own zone 7a and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's Virginia profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Woodlawn?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — 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 Woodlawn
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Woodlawn, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Woodlawn
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Woodlawn. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Woodlawn GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA TRAINING CENTERBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- Southwestern Virginia Training CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Midway Heights GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- PEPSI COLA GENERAL BOTTLERS - WOODLAWNUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- W L DALTONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- GRIFFINS SERVICE & GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Carroll County School Maintenance DeptUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Woodlawn Intermediate SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- G & M MOTORS BODY SHOPBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- Twin County Concrete IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- E W MARTINUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Woodlawn'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 Woodlawn.
Total Sites
356
within ~10 miles of Woodlawn
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Woodlawn
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Woodlawn
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Woodlawn, Mining runs higher than the national average — 81 sites within ~10 miles of Woodlawn. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Woodlawn
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 Woodlawn average
Your land is one point inside Woodlawn
Everything above resolves to Woodlawn as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 12K 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 Woodlawn Average
Woodlawn Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Woodlawn
- ●One soil character for all of Woodlawn
- ●Frost dates read at Woodlawn's scale: Apr 2 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Woodlawn's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Woodlawn
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Woodlawn, Virginia — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Woodlawn averages can't show:
We read public map data around Woodlawn — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Woodlawn average
How we know this about Woodlawn
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 Woodlawn’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 Woodlawn
When does frost risk typically end in Woodlawn?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Woodlawn typically lands around Apr 2, 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 23.
When is the first frost in Woodlawn?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Woodlawn typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Woodlawn?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Woodlawn sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 2 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 23 to Oct 19, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Woodlawn?
The federal record around Woodlawn runs heavier than most — 356 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (198), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Woodlawn?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Woodlawn's scale — its 7a band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Woodlawn'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 Woodlawn’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Woodlawn's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 12,296 acres it covers and 356 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Woodlawn's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Woodlawn's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 2 and Nov 2 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 356 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Woodlawn, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Woodlawn's boundary and the 12,296 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Woodlawn's own centroid, the Blue RidgeUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Woodlawnlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Woodlawn's 12,296 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Carroll County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Carroll 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 Carroll County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Woodlawn's 12,296 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Woodlawn you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 12,296 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 Woodlawn-wide figureread your own land →
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