Port Angeles, Washington, sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect artichoke, fig, california poppy, and cabbage to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Port Angeles, 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 Port Angeles 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 Port Angeles — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Port Angeles — the short answer
Port Angeles, Washington: USDA zone 9a, about 291 days between hard freezes, across 7K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 9a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~291
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 7K 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 9a is Port Angeles's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Port Angeles's 291-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Port Angeles
Each reading below is measured for Port Angeles itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPort Angeles runs about 291 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredPort Angeles sits in USDA hardiness zone 9a.
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 Port Angeles is in
Port Angeles sits in the Puget Lowland — EPA Level III, inside the wider Marine West Coast Forest. That is read at Port Angeles's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Clallam County is mostly Coast Range. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Port Angeles
Every plant below cleared Port Angeles's own zone 9a and its 291-day season. Each card opens that plant's Washington profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Port Angeles?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
What's on the federal record near Port Angeles
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Port Angeles. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MASCO PETROLEUM TUMWATER CFNUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- LINCOLN WELDING INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- PETTIT OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- ITT PENINSULA PLYWOOD CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- PETTIT OIL COMPANYBrownfields · 1300 ft
- PENINSULA BOTTLING CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- WESTPORT SHIPYARD INC PORT ANGELESBrownfields · 1400 ft
- WESTPORT SHIPYARD INC PORT ANGELESToxics Release Inventory · 1400 ft
- UNOCAL BULK PLANT 0601Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- KENNETH OWENUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- VIGOR PORT ANGELES LLCBrownfields · 1500 ft
- MASCO PETROLEUM INC 501 MARINE CFNUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Port Angeles'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 Port Angeles.
Total Sites
209
within ~10 miles of Port Angeles
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Port Angeles
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Port Angeles
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Port Angeles, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Port Angeles — Superfund (5 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (146 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Port Angeles
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 Port Angeles average
Your land is one point inside Port Angeles
Everything above resolves to Port Angeles as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 7K 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 city 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 Port Angeles Average
Port Angeles Average
- ●USDA Zones 9a, averaged across Port Angeles
- ●One soil character for all of Port Angeles
- ●Frost dates read at Port Angeles's scale: Feb 10 to Nov 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Port Angeles's 9a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Port Angeles
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Port Angeles, Washington — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Port Angeles averages can't show:
We read public map data around Port Angeles — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Port Angeles average
How we know this about Port Angeles
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Port Angeles’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Port Angeles
When does frost risk typically end in Port Angeles?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Port Angeles typically lands around Feb 10, 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 Mar 3.
When is the first frost in Port Angeles?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Port Angeles typically arrives around Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 14, so the watching starts about Oct 29 — about 291 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Port Angeles?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Port Angeles sees about 291 frost-free days — roughly Feb 10 through Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 3 to Nov 14, about 256 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Port Angeles?
The federal record around Port Angeles is a meaningful one — 209 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (146), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Port Angeles?
From about Oct 29 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 28 (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 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Port Angeles's scale — its 9a band and its 291-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Port Angeles'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 Port Angeles’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Port Angeles's own scale — its own ~291-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,855 acres it covers and 209 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Port Angeles's own USDA hardiness band, zones 9aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Port Angeles's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Feb 10 and Nov 28 and the ~291-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 209 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Port Angeles, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Port Angeles's boundary and the 6,855 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 9a and a ~291-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Port Angeles sits in the Puget Lowland — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Port Angeles's 6,855 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Clallam County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Clallam County
- The growing challenges every Washington grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Washington
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Clallam County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Port Angeles's 6,855 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Port Angeles you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,855 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 Port Angeles-wide figureread your own land →