USDA zone explorer

Interactive Gardening Zone Map

Look up a ZIP, scan the national hardiness pattern, and translate the USDA zone into frost timing, summer heat, winter chill, moisture pattern, and practical plant choices.

Enter a ZIP code to place your garden on the map.

Hardiness zone -- Average annual extreme minimum
Frost window -- Likely/range estimates after lookup
Heat load -- AHS-style days above 86 F
Fruit chill -- Estimated winter chill

Map view

Hardiness is only the first layer

Use ZIP lookup to place your garden on the official USDA hardiness pattern, then use the region checks below to interpret what the zone does not tell you.

Choose one plant to shade USDA zones by database hardiness fit.
2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map showing zones across the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico

Official USDA ARS 2023 national map layer. ZIP pin is approximate; local terrain, exposure, and drainage can shift real garden behavior.

Short season / cold winter Cold-hardy temperate Long shoulder seasons Warm winter / heat-driven
Zone does not tell you: summer heat humidity soil drainage chill hours deer pressure native range frost pockets

Zone selector

Explore a hardiness zone

Click any zone to see its winter-low range and what it means in the garden.

Garden next steps

Use the map to plan, not just label

After ZIP lookup, this panel shows zone-fit starters from the plant database and links into the matcher or calendar.

Enter a ZIP code to see useful plants and planning moves for that zone.

Interactive zone overlay uses public ArcGIS vector tiles adapted from USDA/OSU 2023 hardiness data and feature data derived from USDA ARS 2023 Plant Hardiness Zone Map data. Static fallback image is from the 2023 USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map downloads. Selected plant overlays use Plant by ZIP database hardiness ranges; they are suitability estimates, not county-level native range maps. Plant by ZIP overlays approximate ZIP and local climate context to help translate the map into planting decisions.