Vancouver, Washington, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Vancouver, 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 Vancouver 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 Vancouver — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Vancouver — the short answer
Vancouver, Washington: USDA zone 8b, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 31K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- Clark County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- Clark County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- Clark County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- City area
- 31K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Clark County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 8b is Vancouver's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Vancouver's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Vancouver
Each reading below is measured for Vancouver itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsVancouver runs about 217 days between hard freezes (read from Clark County, the closest normal to Vancouver) — 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
MeasuredVancouver sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Vancouver is in
Vancouver sits in the Willamette Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Marine West Coast Forest. That is read at Vancouver's own centroid rather than borrowed from Clark County.
What Grows in Vancouver
Every plant below cleared Vancouver's own zone 8b and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's Washington profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Vancouver?
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 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — 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 Vancouver
Survey cells within 31 miles of Vancouver checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 545 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Vancouver
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Vancouver. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ARCO 05998 MASAD N NICOLAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- ALL SEASONS AUTO CENTERS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- MILLER PAINT CO INC VANCOUVERBrownfields · 1800 ft
- KMART 3275Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- ANDRESEN PLAZAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- WALGREENS 10141Brownfields · 2200 ft
- C-TRANUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- PARR LUMBER CO VANCOUVERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- C TRAN CLARK CNTY PUBLIC TRANSITBrownfields · 2300 ft
- 360 SHEET METAL PRODUCTSToxics Release Inventory · 2400 ft
- HY-PRO WEST SITEToxics Release Inventory · 2600 ft
- SUPPLEMENT SCIENCES INC 6300 NE CAMPUS DRBrownfields · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Vancouver'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 Vancouver.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Vancouver
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Vancouver
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Vancouver, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Vancouver — Superfund (57 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (243 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Vancouver
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 Vancouver average
Your land is one point inside Vancouver
Everything above resolves to Vancouver as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 31K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Clark County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this city’s own centroid. 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 Vancouver Average
Vancouver Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Vancouver
- ●One soil character for all of Vancouver
- ●Frost dates read at Vancouver's scale: Mar 28 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Vancouver's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Vancouver
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Vancouver, Washington — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Vancouver averages can't show:
We read public map data around Vancouver — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Vancouver average
How we know this about Vancouver
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 Clark County’s record, because none resolves here; 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 Vancouver
When does frost risk typically end in Vancouver?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Vancouver typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Vancouver?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Vancouver typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Vancouver?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Vancouver sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 17, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Vancouver?
The federal record around Vancouver runs heavier than most — 3,550 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,964), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Vancouver?
From about Oct 1 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 Oct 31 (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 Oct 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Vancouver's scale — its 8b band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Vancouver'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 Vancouver’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Vancouver's own scale — the 31,233 acres it covers and 3,550 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Vancouver's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 3,550 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Vancouver, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Vancouver's boundary and the 31,233 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Vancouver's own centroid, the Willamette ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Vancouver checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Vancouver has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Clark County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Vancouver's 31,233 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Clark County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Clark 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 Clark County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Vancouver's 31,233 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Vancouver you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 31,233 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Vancouver-wide figureread your own land →