Zone 8a: What Grows and How to Garden There

What a zone 8a winter means

Zone 8a winters are short and usually mild, with occasional hard freezes. That is cold enough to give most peaches, apples and blueberries the winter chilling they need, and mild enough for broadleaf evergreens such as camellias, gardenias and Southern azaleas. The bigger limits come in summer: long stretches of heat and humidity stress cool-climate perennials, and in the deeper South some plants that need a real winter, such as peonies and lilacs, start to fade.

Where zone 8a is

Zone 8a covers the Piedmont and inland coastal plain of the Southeast, including Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro and Winston-Salem; Atlanta and Athens; Huntsville and northern Alabama and Mississippi; Chattanooga and Memphis; Little Rock; and Baltimore and Chesapeake Bay areas of Maryland and Virginia. In Texas and Oklahoma it includes Denton, Abilene and parts of the Red River country, and in the West parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, California and the Pacific Northwest.

Fruit trees and small fruit

Peaches, plums and apples grow well if you match chill hours. Clemson notes that trees from nurseries far to the south may need so little chill that they bloom in a January warm spell and lose their flowers to frost every year, while northern cultivars may never get enough chill farther south.

Blueberries: Clemson calls rabbiteye the most adaptable type across South Carolina except the high mountains, and UGA recommends it as the best home-garden blueberry in Georgia. Southern highbush has lower chill needs.

Figs are dependable; NC State lists them for zones 7a-10b. Citrus is marginal in the ground: UF/IFAS rates satsuma to about 14°F and kumquat to about 16°F, so plant them only in protected spots and be ready to cover them.

Perennials, bulbs and shrubs

• Shrubs: camellias (sasanquas bloom from November, japonicas later), azaleas and crape myrtles, which UF/IFAS calls well adapted to heat and drought.
• Bulbs: daffodils naturalize. Spring bulbs need 12-16 weeks of chilling, so NC State plants them once soil cools below 60°F. Hybrid tulips decline after the first year and are best treated as annuals.
• Peonies: choose early, single types (see the FAQ).

Special concerns

Summer heat ends spring tomatoes early and makes lettuce bolt. Fall is the best season for kale, collards, broccoli and cabbage; Virginia Cooperative Extension counts back from the first frost and adds about 2 weeks because growth slows as days shorten. Late freezes after warm spells are the main threat to fruit bloom, so plant on slopes rather than in low spots where cold air settles (UGA).