Holiday Island, Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Holiday Island, 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 Holiday Island 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 Holiday Island — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Holiday Island — the short answer
Holiday Island, Arkansas: USDA zone 7a, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 5K 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 Holiday Island's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Holiday Island's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Holiday Island
Each reading below is measured for Holiday Island itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHoliday Island runs about 220 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
MeasuredHoliday Island 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 Holiday Island is in
Holiday Island sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Holiday Island's own centroid rather than borrowed from Carroll County.
What Grows in Holiday Island
Every plant below cleared Holiday Island's own zone 7a and its 220-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Holiday Island?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 4 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
What's on the federal record near Holiday Island
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Holiday Island. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 21N26W10CDC1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- HOLIDAY ISLAND WATERWORKSPFAS · 1.1 mi
- JB AUTO REPAIRUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- HOLIDAY ISLAND MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- WHITE OAK STATION # 31Underground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- 21N26W17BCC1Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- L & L STORESUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- EZ STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- EUREKA SPRINGS SCHOOL BUS BARNUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- EAGLE ROCK MARINA INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- SHORELINE RESORT AND CAMPGROUNDUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- EAGLE ROCK STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Holiday Island'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 Holiday Island.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Holiday Island
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Holiday Island
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Holiday Island, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 36 sites within ~10 miles of Holiday Island. 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 Holiday Island
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 Holiday Island average
Your land is one point inside Holiday Island
Everything above resolves to Holiday Island as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 Holiday Island Average
Holiday Island Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Holiday Island
- ●One soil character for all of Holiday Island
- ●Frost dates read at Holiday Island's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Holiday Island's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Holiday Island
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Holiday Island, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Holiday Island averages can't show:
We read public map data around Holiday Island — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Holiday Island average
How we know this about Holiday Island
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 Holiday Island’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 Holiday Island
When does frost risk typically end in Holiday Island?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Holiday Island typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Holiday Island?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Holiday Island typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 220 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Holiday Island?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Holiday Island sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 21, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Holiday Island?
The federal record around Holiday Island shows 56 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (36), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.7 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Holiday Island?
From about Oct 5 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Holiday Island's scale — its 7a band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Holiday Island'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 Holiday Island’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Holiday Island's own scale — its own ~220-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,644 acres it covers and 56 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Holiday Island's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Holiday Island's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 4 and the ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 56 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Holiday Island, the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Holiday Island's boundary and the 4,644 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Holiday Island's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Holiday Island's 4,644 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 Holiday Island's 4,644 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Holiday Island you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,644 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 miles 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 Holiday Island-wide figureread your own land →
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