Izard County, in Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Izard County lies within the Ozarks — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Izard County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Izard County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Izard County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Izard County — the short answer
Izard County, Arkansas: USDA zone 7b, about 237 days between hard freezes, across 371K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~237
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 371K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 7b is Izard County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Izard County's 237-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Izard County
Across a year, Izard County accumulates about 4,269 growing degree days above 50°F, about 537 fewer than the middle Arkansas county — ahead of 10 of Arkansas’s 75 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Winter banks about 2,098 hours below 45°F, 318 more than the Arkansas middle of 1,780. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Izard County
Across Izard County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Brockwell, Boden, and Portia are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a gravelly sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.9, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
4%
Hydric soils
0%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Izard County
The USDA soil survey maps 93% of Izard County as well drained — but another 7% drains differently: 3% excessively drained, 2% somewhat excessively drained.
Brockwell is the most extensive named soil at 24% of mapped acres, then Boden (15%) and Portia (14%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Izard County
Each reading below is measured for Izard County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Izard County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Izard County runs about pH 5.0–5.9, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredIzard County runs about 237 days between hard freezes — 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
MeasuredIzard County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Izard County is in
Izard County sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Izard County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Izard County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 237-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile.
Is it too late to plant in Izard County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 13 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
What gets applied to farmland in Izard County
USGS estimates 31,149 lb of Triclopyr on Izard County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (20,114 lb) and Glyphosate (1,416 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Izard County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Izard County — 68 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Izard County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Izard County
Closest first, across Izard County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- COUNCE COLLISION REPAIR INCBrownfields · 2.0 mi
- RED MULEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- REYNOLDS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- MELBORNE SUPER STOP SERV STATUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- WHITE RIVER SHIRT COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- UNILIN FLOORING NC, LLC - MELBOURNE PLANTBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- LAWRENCE MILLER CHEV-OLDS INCBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- AHTD ABANDONED TANK ON ROWUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- MELBOURNE SCHOOL DISTRICT #20Underground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- JR FOOD MART #179Underground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- AIRREADY MRO SERVICES, INC.Brownfields · 2.7 mi
- JORDAN'S KWIK STOP #38Underground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Izard County'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 Izard County.
Total Sites
68
across Izard County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Izard County
Severity Distribution
across Izard County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Izard County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 54 sites across Izard County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Izard County
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 Izard County average
Your land is one point inside Izard County
Everything above resolves to Izard County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 371K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Izard County Average
Izard County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Izard County
- ●One soil character for all of Izard County
- ●Frost dates read at Izard County's scale: Mar 21 to Nov 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Izard County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Izard County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Izard County, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Izard County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Izard County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Izard County average
How we know this about Izard County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Izard County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Izard County
When does frost risk typically end in Izard County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Izard County typically lands around Mar 21, 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 11.
How long is the growing season in Izard County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Izard County sees about 237 frost-free days — roughly Mar 21 through Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 11 to Oct 30, about 202 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Izard County?
The federal record around Izard County shows 68 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (54), the nearest Brownfields record about 2.0 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
Everything above is measured at Izard County's scale — its 7b band and its 237-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Izard County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Arkansas's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Izard County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Izard County's own scale — its own ~237-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 68 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Izard County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Izard County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~237-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Izard CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 68 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 2.0 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Izard County's boundary and the 371,328 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~237-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Izard County sitting wholly inside the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Izard County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Arkansas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Arkansas
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Izard County — the ~237 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Izard County's 371,328 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 68 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Izard Countyread your own land →