USDA Hardiness Zone API

About the USDA Hardiness Zone API

Send a five-digit US ZIP code to receive the location's temperature range in Fahrenheit and the formatted zone title. Paid subscriptions expand the response with the exact alphanumeric zone code, Celsius temperature bands, climate descriptions, and lists of suitable plants for that growing environment.

What people use it for

Nursery Catalog Filtering

Seed and plant retailers filter product catalogs by customer ZIP code to hide varieties that cannot survive local winter lows.

Landscape Project Planning

To prevent winter plant loss, landscaping software checks minimum temperatures during site intake to recommend trees and shrubs suited to the property.

Garden Calendar Scheduling

Before scheduling seasonal planting alerts, home gardening apps look up regional temperature ranges to adjust spring and fall frost timelines.

Farm Risk Evaluation

When evaluating crop risk for smallholdings, underwriters confirm local cold-hardiness thresholds against regional boundaries.

Ways to call it

One endpoint, many ways in — REST with JSON, XML, YAML and CSV, plus GraphQL and an MCP interface for AI agents.

JSON

Default REST response

XML

Markup format

YAML

Human-readable

CSV

Tabular export

Beta

GraphQL

Query language

New

MCP

For AI agents

Request parameters — GET /v1/hardinesszone

Sent in the query string. Premium parameters are accepted on every plan but only take effect on plans that include them. Anything not listed here is dropped rather than passed through.

Required

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curl "https://api.apiverve.com/v1/hardinesszone?zip=97201" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Authentication

Send your key in the x-api-key header. That is the only auth step — no token exchange, and no per-endpoint scope to configure.

Response — GET /v1/hardinesszone

Every APIVerve endpoint returns the same three top-level keys, so one response handler covers your whole integration: status, error and data. Only data changes shape.

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{
  "status": "ok",
  "error": null,
  "data": {
    "zipCode": "97201",
    "zone": "8b",
    "tempRange": "15 to 20",
    "zoneTitle": "8b: 15 to 20",
    "details": {
      "tempRange": "15°F to 20°F (-9°C to -7°C)",
      "description": "Mild and relatively warm, found in parts of southern U.S. like the Gulf Coast and parts of Texas.",
      "plantSurvival": "A wide range of plants, including many Mediterranean and subtropical varieties."
    }
  }
}

Response fields

Paths are relative to data. Premium fields are absent rather than zeroed on plans that do not include them, so check for presence instead of comparing to 0.

Response headers

Every response carries your balance, so your own code always knows where it stands without polling anything. All four are exposed to browsers through CORS.

Errors

Read the HTTP status first, then error for the specific reason. The body names the parameter that has to change.

What a call costs — 2 credits per call

Credits are shared across every APIVerve API — one balance, one key, one bill. Failed requests never count against it, so a rejected input costs nothing.

Calls are what the credits buy at this API's rate — spend them here, on any of the other APIs, or across both. Nothing is reserved per endpoint.

Zero-code embed — one snippet, no backend

Drop an interactive USDA Hardiness Zone form onto any page. The widget calls the API for you, so no key ever appears in your markup and there is nothing to deploy.

Changelog — USDA Hardiness Zone API

Every change to this endpoint, newest first. Breaking changes ship as a new version and the previous one keeps serving — response fields are added, never removed or retyped in place, so an integration written against v1 keeps working.

Currently v1