Green Forest, Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Green Forest, 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 Green Forest 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 Green Forest — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Green Forest — the short answer
Green Forest, Arkansas: USDA zone 7a, about 235 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~235
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 2K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 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 7a is Green Forest's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Green Forest's 235-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Green Forest
Each reading below is measured for Green Forest itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGreen Forest runs about 235 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
MeasuredGreen Forest sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Green Forest is in
Green Forest sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Green Forest's own centroid rather than borrowed from Carroll County.
What Grows in Green Forest
Every plant below cleared Green Forest's own zone 7a and its 235-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Green Forest?
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 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 23 (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's on the federal record near Green Forest
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Green Forest. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JOE'S TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- TOBACCO SUPERSTOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- TYSON FOODS, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- MAIN FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- 19N23W04BAC1Nitrate · 2000 ft
- TYSON FOODS - GREEN FOREST PROCESSINGToxics Release Inventory · 2300 ft
- TYSON FOODS - GREEN FOREST PROCESSINGBrownfields · 2300 ft
- GREEN FOREST PUBLIC SCHOOLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- TYSON FOODS, INC.Brownfields · 2500 ft
- TYSON FOODS/GREEN FOREST HATCHBrownfields · 2500 ft
- PHILLIPS 66 COMPANY #021812Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- BUTTERBALL FEED MILLToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Green Forest'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 Green Forest.
Total Sites
85
within ~10 miles of Green Forest
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Green Forest
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Green Forest
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Green Forest, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 24 sites within ~10 miles of Green Forest. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Green Forest
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 Green Forest average
Your land is one point inside Green Forest
Everything above resolves to Green Forest as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 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 Green Forest Average
Green Forest Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Green Forest
- ●One soil character for all of Green Forest
- ●Frost dates read at Green Forest's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Green Forest's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Green Forest
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Green Forest, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Green Forest averages can't show:
We read public map data around Green Forest — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Green Forest average
How we know this about Green Forest
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 Green Forest’s own record; 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 Green Forest
When does frost risk typically end in Green Forest?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Green Forest typically lands around Mar 23, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Green Forest?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Green Forest typically arrives around Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 30, so the watching starts about Oct 14 — about 235 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Green Forest?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Green Forest sees about 235 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Oct 30, about 200 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Green Forest?
The federal record around Green Forest shows 85 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (45), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Green Forest?
From about Oct 14 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 Nov 13 (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 Nov 13. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Green Forest's scale — its 7a band and its 235-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Green Forest'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 Green Forest’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Green Forest's own scale — its own ~235-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,578 acres it covers and 85 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Green Forest's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Green Forest's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 23 and Nov 13 and the ~235-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 85 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Green Forest, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Green Forest's boundary and the 1,578 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~235-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Green Forest's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Green Forest's 1,578 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Carroll County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Carroll County
- The growing challenges every Arkansas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Arkansas
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Carroll County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Green Forest's 1,578 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Green Forest you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,578 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Green Forest-wide figureread your own land →
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