Lead Hill, 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.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Lead Hill, 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 Lead Hill 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 Lead Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lead Hill — the short answer
Lead Hill, Arkansas: USDA zone 7a, about 216 days between hard freezes, across 370 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~216
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 370 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 Lead Hill's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lead Hill's 216-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lead Hill
Each reading below is measured for Lead Hill itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLead Hill runs about 216 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
MeasuredLead Hill 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 Lead Hill is in
Lead Hill sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lead Hill's own centroid rather than borrowed from Boone County.
What Grows in Lead Hill
Every plant below cleared Lead Hill's own zone 7a and its 216-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lead Hill?
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 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Lead Hill
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lead Hill. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LEAD HILL FILLIN STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- COUNTRY MARKET/WHITE OAK #7Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- LEAD HILL TIRE SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- DAVE'S LEAD HILL BAIT & TACKLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- SOUTHSIDE TEXACO & GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- JAMES ROGERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- NORTECH GRAPHICS, INC.Brownfields · 1.5 mi
- 21N18W20CCD1Nitrate · 2.6 mi
- DIRST CANOE RENTALUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- 21N18W20CAA1Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- 20N18W21ACA1Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- DIAMOND CITY LUMBER COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lead Hill'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 Lead Hill.
Total Sites
135
within ~10 miles of Lead Hill
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lead Hill
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lead Hill
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lead Hill, Mining runs higher than the national average — 102 sites within ~10 miles of Lead Hill. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Lead Hill
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 Lead Hill average
Your land is one point inside Lead Hill
Everything above resolves to Lead Hill as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 370 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 town 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 Lead Hill Average
Lead Hill Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Lead Hill
- ●One soil character for all of Lead Hill
- ●Frost dates read at Lead Hill's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lead Hill's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lead Hill
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lead Hill, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lead Hill averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lead Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lead Hill average
How we know this about Lead Hill
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Lead Hill’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Lead Hill
When does frost risk typically end in Lead Hill?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lead Hill typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Lead Hill?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lead Hill typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 216 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lead Hill?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lead Hill sees about 216 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 20, about 181 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lead Hill?
The federal record around Lead Hill runs heavier than most — 135 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (102), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Lead Hill?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lead Hill's scale — its 7a band and its 216-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lead Hill'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 Lead Hill’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Lead Hill's own scale — its own ~216-day season between 28°F freezes, the 370 acres it covers and 135 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lead Hill's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lead Hill's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 3 and the ~216-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 135 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lead Hill, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lead Hill's boundary and the 370 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~216-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lead Hill's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lead Hill's 370 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Boone County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Boone 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 Boone County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lead Hill's 370 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lead Hill you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 370 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Lead Hill-wide figureread your own land →
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